Yours ever affectionately.
Miss Mary Boyle.
Office of "All the Year Round,"Wednesday, Jan. 6th, 1869.
My dear Mary,
I was more affected than you can easily believe, by the sight of your gift lying on my dressing-table on the morning of the new year. To be remembered in a friend's heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and that and the remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one being inseparable from the other.
You may be sure that I shall attach a special interest and value to the beautiful present, and shall wear it as akind of charm. God bless you, and may we carry the friendship through many coming years!
My preparations for a certain murder that I had to do last night have rendered me unfit for letter-writing these last few days, or you would have heard from me sooner. The crime being completely off my mind and the blood spilled, I am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly edifying state to-day.
Ever believe me, your affectionate Friend.
Miss Dickens.
Torquay,Wednesday, Jan. 27th, 1869.
My dearest Mamie,
We have been doing immensely.
This place is most beautiful, though colder now than one would expect. This hotel, an immense place, built among picturesque broken rocks out in the blue sea, is quite delicious. There are bright green trees in the garden, and new peas a foot high. Our rooms areen suite, all commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-glass windows. Everything good and well served.
Apantomimewas being done last night, in the place where I am to read to-night. It is something between a theatre, a circus, a riding-school, a Methodist chapel, and a cow-house. I was so disgusted with its acoustic properties on going in to look at it, that the whole unfortunate staff have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and carpets in it to prevent echoes.
I have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than I thought it last night.
At Clifton, on Monday night, we had a contagion of fainting. And yet the place was not hot. I should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies borne out, stiff and rigid, at various times. It became quite ridiculous.
Miss Hogarth.
Bath,Friday, Jan. 29th, 1869.
My dearest Georgy,
You must not trust blank places in my list, because many have been, and will be, gradually filled up. After the Tuesday's reading in London, I havetwofor that same week in the country—Nottingham and Leicester. In the following week I have none; but my arrangements are all at sea as yet, for I must somehow and somewhere do an "Uncommercial" in that week, and I also want to get poor Chauncey's "opinions" to the printer.
This mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to let of course. I hate the sight of the bygone assembly-rooms, and the Bath chairs trundling the dowagers about the streets. As to to-morrow morning in the daylight!——
I have no cold to speak of. Dolby sends kindest regard.
Mrs. Lehmann.
Office,Wednesday, Feb. 3rd, 1869.
Dear Mrs. Lehmann,
Before getting your kind note, I had written to Lehmann, explaining why I cannot allow myself any social pleasure while my farewell task is yet unfinished. The work is so very hard, that every little scrap of restand silenceI can pick up is precious. And even those morsels are so flavoured with "All the Year Round," that they are not quite the genuine article.
Joachim[28]came round to see me at the hall last night, and I told him how sorry I was to forego the pleasure of meeting him (he is a noble fellow!) at your pleasant table.
I am glad you are coming to the "Murder" on the 2nd of March. (The house will be prodigious.) Such little changes as I have made shall be carefully presented to yourcritical notice, and I hope will be crowned with your approval. But you are always such a fine audience that I have no fear on that head. I saw Chorley yesterday in his own room. A sad and solitary sight. The widowed Drake, with a certaingincoherence of manner, presented a blooming countenance and buxom form in the passage; so buxom indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a modest stopper, before I could get into the dining decanter where poor Chorley reposed.
Faithfully yours always.
P.S.—My love to Rudie.
Miss Hogarth.
Glasgow,Thursday, Feb. 25th, 1869.
I received your letter at Edinburgh this morning. I did not write to you yesterday, as there had been no reading on the previous night.
The foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really occasions me no inconvenience beyond the necessity of wearing the big work of art. Syme saw me again this morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion altogether. I think the Edinburgh audience understood the "Murder" better last night than any audience that has heard it yet. "Business" is enormous, and Dolby jubilant.
It is a most deplorable afternoon here, deplorable even for Glasgow. A great wind blowing, and sleet driving before it in a storm of heavy blobs. We had to drive our train dead in the teeth of the wind, and got in here late, and are pressed for time.
Strange that in the North we have had absolutely no snow. There was a very thin scattering on the Pentlands for an hour or two, but no more.
Miss Hogarth.
Edinburgh,Friday, Feb. 26th, 1869.
Writing to-morrow morning would be all but impracticable for me; would be quite so for Dolby, who has to go to the agents and "settle up" in the midst of his breakfast. So I write to-day, in reply to your note received at Glasgow this morning.
The foot conducts itself splendidly. We had a most enormous cram at Glasgow. Syme saw me again yesterday (before I left here for Glasgow), and repeated "Gout!" with the greatest indignation and contempt, several times. The aching is going off as the day goes on, if it be worth mentioning again. The ride from Glasgow was charming this morning; the sun shining brilliantly, and the country looking beautiful.
I told you what the Nortons were. Mabel Lowell is a charming little thing, and very retiring in manner and expression.
We shall have a scene here to-night, no doubt. The night before last, Ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it by the "Murder." Every vestige of colour had left his face when I came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in the wildest way. I have utterly left offmychampagne, and, I think, with good results. Nothing during the readings but a very little weak iced brandy-and-water.
I hope you will find me greatly improved on Tuesday.
Miss Dickens.
Birmingham,Friday, March 5th, 1869.
This is to send you my best love, and to wish you many and many happy returns of to-morrow, which I miraculously remember to be your birthday.
I saw this morning a very pretty fan here. I was going to buy it as a remembrance of the occasion, when I was checked by a dim misgiving that you had a fan not long ago from Chorley. Tell me what you would like better, and consider me your debtor in that article, whatever it may be.
I have had my usual left boot on this morning, and have had an hour's walk. It was in a gale of wind and a simoom of dust, but I greatly enjoyed it. Immense enthusiasm at Wolverhampton last night over "Marigold." Scott made a most amazing ass of himself yesterday. He reported that he had left behind somewhere three books—"Boots," "Murder," and "Gamp." We immediately telegraphed to the office. Answer, no books there. As my impression was that he must have left them at St. James's Hall, we then arranged to send him up to London at seven this morning. Meanwhile (though not reproached), he wept copiously and audibly. I had asked him over and over again, was he sure he had not put them in my large black trunk? Too sure, too sure. Hadn't opened that trunk after Tuesday night's reading. He opened it to get some clothes out when I went to bed, and there the books were! He produced them with an air of injured surprise, as if we had put them there.
Miss Hogarth.
Queen's Hotel, Manchester,Sunday, March 7th, 1869.
We have had our sitting-room chimney afire this morning, and have had to turn out elsewhere to breakfast; but the chamber has since been cleaned up, and we are reinstated. Manchester is (forManchester) bright and fresh.
Tell Russell that a crop of hay is to be got off themeadow this year, before the club use it. They did not make such use of it last year as reconciles me to losing another hay-crop. So they must wait until the hay is in, before they commence active operations.
Poor Olliffe! I am truly sorry to read those sad words about his suffering, and fear that the end is not far off.
We are very comfortably housed here, and certainly that immense hall is a wonderful place for its size. Without much greater expenditure of voice than usual, I a little enlarged the action last night, and Dolby (who went to all the distant points of view) reported that he could detect no difference between it and any other place. As always happens now—and did not at first—they were unanimously taken by Noah Claypole's laugh. But the go, throughout, was enormous. Sims Reeves was doing Henry Bertram at the theatre, and of course took some of our shillings. It was a night of excitement for Cottonopolis.
I received from Mrs. Keeley this morning a very good photograph of poor old Bob. Yesterday I had a letter from Harry, reminding me that our intended Cambridge day is the day next after that of the boat-race. Clearly it must be changed.
Miss Hogarth.
Queen's Hotel, Manchester,Saturday, March 20th, 1869.
Getting yours and its enclosure, Mary's note, at two this afternoon, I write a line at once in order that you may have it on Monday morning.
The Theatre Royal, Liverpool, will be a charming place to read in. Ladies are to dine at the dinner, and we hear it is to be a very grand affair. Dolby is doubtful whether it may not "hurt the business," by drawing a great deal of money in another direction, which I think possible enough.Trade is very badhere, and the gloom of the Preston strike seems to brood over the place. The Titiens Company have been doing wretchedly. I should have a greater sympathy with them if they were not practising in the next room now.
My love to Letitia and Harriette,[29]wherein Dolby (highly gratified by being held in remembrance) joins with the same to you.
Miss Hogarth.
Manchester,Sunday, March 21st, 1869.
Will you tell Mary that I have had a letter from Frith, in which he says that he will be happy to show her his pictures "any day in the first week of April"? I have replied that she will be proud to receive his invitation. His object in writing was to relieve his mind about the "Murder," of which he cannot say enough.
Tremendous enthusiasm here last night, calling in the most thunderous manner after "Marigold," and again after the "Trial," shaking the great hall, and cheering furiously.
Love to all.
Mr. John Clarke.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Wednesday, March 24th, 1869.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to assure you that I am much gratified by the desire you do me the honour to express in your letter handed to me by Mr. John Clarke.
Before that letter reached me, I had heard of your wish, and had mentioned to Messrs. Chappell that it would be highly agreeable to me to anticipate it, if possible. They readily responded, and we agreed upon having three morningreadings in London. As they are not yet publicly announced, I add a note of the days and subjects:
Saturday, May 1st. "Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn," and "Sikes and Nancy" from "Oliver Twist."
Saturday, May 8th. "The Christmas Carol."
Saturday, May 22nd. "Sikes and Nancy" from "Oliver Twist," and "The Trial" from "Pickwick."
With the warmest interest in your art, and in its claims upon the general gratitude and respect,
Believe me, always faithfully your Friend.
Miss Hogarth.
Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool,Sunday, April 4th, 1869.
By this post I send to Mary the truly affecting account of poor dear Katie Macready's death. It is as sorrowful as anything so peaceful and trustful can be!
Both my feet are very tender, and often feel as though they were in hot water. But I was wonderfully well and strong, thank God! and had no end of voice for the two nights running in that great Birmingham hall. We had enormous houses.
So far as I understand the dinner arrangements here, they are much too long. As to the acoustics of that hall, and the position of the tables (both as bad as bad can be), my only consolation is that, if anybody can be heard,Iprobably can be. The honorary secretary tells me that six hundred people are to dine. The mayor, being no speaker and out of health besides, hands over the toast of the evening to Lord Dufferin. The town is full of the festival. The Theatre Royal, touched up for the occasion, will look remarkably bright and well for the readings, and our lets are large. It is remarkable that our largest let as yet is for Thursday,not Friday. I infer that the dinner damages Friday, but Dolby does not think so. There appears to be great curiosity to hear the "Murder." (On Friday night last I read to two thousand people, and odd hundreds.)
I hear that Anthony Trollope, Dixon, Lord Houghton, Lemon, Esquiros (of theRevue des Deux Mondes), and Sala are to be called upon to speak; the last, for the newspaper press. All the Liverpool notabilities are to muster. And Manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due formality.
I had been this morning to look at St. George's Hall, and suggest what can be done to improve its acoustics. As usually happens in such cases, their most important arrangements are already made and unchangeable. I should not have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and could certainly have placed the daïs to much greater advantage. So all the good I could do was to show where banners could be hung with some hope of stopping echoes. Such is my small news, soon exhausted. We arrived here at three yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; Chorley has not yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while I was at Birmingham.
It is a curious little instance of the way in which things fit together that there is a ship-of-war in the Mersey, whose flags and so forth are to be brought up to St. George's Hall for the dinner. She is theDonegal, of which Paynter told me he had just been captain, when he told me all about Sydney at Bath.
One of the pleasantest things I have experienced here this time, is the manner in which I am stopped in the streets by working men, who want to shake hands with me, and tell me they know my books. I never go out but this happens. Down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful stutterpresented himself in this way. His modesty, combined with a conviction that if he were in earnest I would see it and wouldn't repel him, made up as true a piece of natural politeness as I ever saw.
Miss Hogarth.
Imperial Hotel, Blackpool,Wednesday, April 21st, 1869.
I send you this hasty line to let you know that I have come to this sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I am much better than I was on Sunday, but shall want careful looking to, to get through the readings. My weakness and deadness are allon the left side, and if I don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand, I don't know where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank Beard; he recognises, in the exact description I have given him, indisputable evidences of overwork, which he would wish to treat immediately. So I have said: "Go in and win."
I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too, and I wear my own boot.
Miss Dickens.
Preston,Thursday Evening, April 22nd, 1869.
Don't be in the least alarmed.Beard has come down, and instantly echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to him), that the readings must bestopped. I have had symptoms that must not be disregarded. I go to Liverpool to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to the office to-morrow.
The Lord John Russell.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Wednesday, May 26th, 1869.
My dear Lord Russell,
I have delayed answering your kind letter, in order that you might get home before I wrote. I am happy to report myself quite well again, and I shall be charmed to come to Pembroke Lodge on any day that may be most convenient to Lady Russell and yourself after the middle of June.
You gratify me beyond expression by your reference to the Liverpool dinner. I made the allusion to you with all my heart at least, and it was most magnificently received.
I beg to send my kind regard to Lady Russell, with many thanks for her remembrance, and am ever,
My dear Lord Russell, faithfully yours.
Mr. W. H. Wills.
Office of "All the Year Round,"Thursday, June 24th, 1869.
My dear Wills,
At a great meeting[30]compounded of your late "Chief," Charley, Morley, Grieve, and Telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great institution.
Many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. I am so aweary of church questions of all sorts that I am not quite clear as to tackling this. But I am turning it in my mind. I am afraid of two things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done; secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our circulation.
Nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell from some forgotten crypt—an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore. Lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and does no more.
I have been to Chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built (very ingenious and cheap).
We were all much disappointed last Saturday afternoon by a neighbouring fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at Drury Lane Theatre. Ellen's[31]child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards, replied: "No.Shewasn't.Iwas."
London execrable.
Ever affectionately yours.
P.S.—Love to Mrs. Wills.
Mr. Shirley Brooks.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Tuesday, July 12th, 1869.
My dear Brooks,
I have appended my sign manual to the memorial, which I think is very discreetly drawn up. I have a strong feeling of sympathy with poor Mrs. Cunningham, for I remember the pretty house she managed charmingly. She has always done her duty well, and has had hard trials. But I greatly doubt the success of the memorial, I am sorry to add.
It was hotter here yesterday on this Kentish chalk than I have felt it anywhere for many a day. Now it is overcast and raining hard, much to the satisfaction of great farmers like myself.
I am glad to infer from your companionship with the Cocked Hats, that there is no such thing as gout within several miles of you. May it keep its distance.
Ever, my dear Brooks, faithfully yours.
Mr. W. C. Macready.
Gad's Hill,Tuesday, July 20th, 1869.
My dearest Macready,
I have received your letter here to-day, and deeply feel with you and for you the affliction of poor dear Katie's loss. I was not unprepared for the sad news, but it comes in such a rush of old remembrances and withered joys that strikes to the heart.
God bless you! Love and youth are still beside you, and in that thought I take comfort for my dear old friend.
I am happy to report myself perfectly well and flourishing. We are just now announcing the resumption and conclusion of the broken series of farewell readings in a London course of twelve, beginning early in the new year.
Scarcely a day has gone by this summer in which we have not talked of you and yours. Georgina, Mary, and I continually speak of you. In the spirit we certainly are even more together than we used to be in the body in the old times. I don't know whether you have heard that Harry has taken the second scholarship (fifty pounds a year) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The bigwigs expect him to do a good deal there.
Wills having given up in consequence of broken health (he has been my sub-editor for twenty years), I have taken Charley into "All the Year Round." He is a very good man of business, and evinces considerable aptitude in sub-editing work.
This place is immensely improved since you were here,and really is now very pretty indeed. We are sorry that there is no present prospect of your coming to see it; but I like to know of your being at the sea, and having to do—from the beach, as Mrs. Keeley used to say in "The Prisoner of War"—with the winds and the waves and all their freshening influences.
I dined at Greenwich a few days ago with Delane. He asked me about you with much interest. He looks as if he had never seen a printing-office, and had never been out of bed after midnight.
Great excitement caused here by your capital news of Butty. I suppose Willy has at least a dozen children by this time.
Our loves to the noble boy and to dear Mrs. Macready.
Ever, my dearest Macready,Your attached and affectionate.
Mr. Edmund Ollier.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869.
My dear Mr. Ollier,
I am very sensible of the feeling of the Committee towards me; and I receive their invitation (conveyed through you) as a most acceptable mark of their consideration.
But I have a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. I do not expect or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other men; still, it is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that I must decline to officiate.
Faithfully yours always.
Miss Dickens.
Office of "All the Year Round," No. 26, Wellington Street,Strand, London, W.C.,Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869.
My dearest Mamie,
I send you the second chapter of the remarkable story. The printer is late with it, and I have not had time to read it, and as I altered it considerably here and there, I have no doubt there are some verbal mistakes in it. However, they will probably express themselves.
But I offer a prize of six pairs of gloves—between you, and your aunt, and Ellen Stone, as competitors—to whomsoever will tell me what idea in this second part is mine. I don't mean an idea in language, in the turning of a sentence, in any little description of an action, or a gesture, or what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting the whole storyas I found it. You are all to assume that I found it in the main as you read it, with one exception. If I had written it, I should have made the woman love the man at last. And I should have shadowed that possibility out, by the child's bringing them a little more together on that holiday Sunday.
But I didn't write it. So, finding that it wanted something, I put that something in. What was it?
Love to Ellen Stone.
Mr. Arthur Ryland.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Friday, Aug. 13th, 1869.
My dear Mr. Ryland,
Many thanks for your letter.
I have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification, and hold that there is, everywhere, a vast amount too much of it. A sense of absurdity would be so strong upon me, if I got up at Birmingham to make a flourish onthe advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts and conditions of men, that I should inevitably check myself and present a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. But if I could interest myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the ways of life of the students; in their examples of perseverance and determination to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies, the number of hours they must daily give to the work that must be done for a livelihood, before they can devote themselves to the acquisition of new knowledge, and so forth, then I could interest others. This is the kind of information I want. Mere holding forth "I utterly detest, abominate, and abjure."
I fear I shall not be in London next week. But if you will kindly send me here, at your leisure, the roughest notes of such points as I have indicated, I shall be heartily obliged to you, and will take care of their falling into shape and order in my mind. Meantime I "make a note of" Monday, 27th September, and of writing to you touching your kind offer of hospitality, three weeks before that date.
I beg to send my kind regard to Mrs. and Miss Ryland, and am always,
Very faithfully yours.
Mr. Frederic Ouvry.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Sunday, Aug. 22nd, 1869.
My dear Ouvry,
I will expect a call from you at the office, on Thursday, at your own most convenient hour. I admit the soft impeachment concerning Mrs. Gamp: I likes my payments to be made reg'lar, and I likewise likes my publisher to draw it mild.
Ever yours.
Mr. Arthur Ryland.
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,Monday, Sept. 6th, 1869.
My dear Mr. Ryland,
I am sorry to find—I had a foreshadowing of it some weeks ago—that I shall not be able to profit by your kind offer of hospitality when I come to Birmingham forourInstitution. I must come down in time for a quiet dinner at the hotel with my "Readings" secretary, Mr. Dolby, and must away next morning. Besides having a great deal in hand just now (the title of a new book among other things), I shall have visitors from abroad here at the time, and am severely claimed by my daughter, who indeed is disloyal to Birmingham in the matter of my going away at all. Pray represent me to Mrs. Ryland as the innocent victim of circumstances, and as sacrificing pleasure to the work I have to do, and to the training under which alone I can do it without feeling it.
You will see from the enclosed that I am in full force, and going to finish my readings, please God, after Christmas. I am in the hope of receiving your promised notes in due course, and continue in the irreverent condition in which I last reported myself on the subject of speech-making. Now that men not only make the nights of the session hideous by what the Americans call "orating" in Parliament, but trouble the peace of the vacation by saying over again what they said there (with the addition of what theydidn'tsay there, and never will have the courage to say there), I feel indeed that silence, like gold across the Atlantic, is a rarity at a premium.
Faithfully yours always.
Mr. William Charles Kent.
Office of "All the Year Round,"Thursday, Oct. 7th, 1869.
My dear Kent,
I felt that you would be deeply disappointed. I thought it better not to make the first sign while you were depressed, but my mind has been constantly with you. And not mine alone. You cannot think with what affection and sympathy you have been made the subject of our family dinner talk at Gad's Hill these last three days. Nothing could exceed the interest of my daughters and my sister-in-law, or the earnestness of their feeling about it. I have been really touched by its warm and genuine expression.
Cheer up, my dear fellow; cheer up, for God's sake. That is, for the sake of all that is good in you and around you.
Ever your affectionate Friend.
Mr. W. C. Macready.
Gad's Hill,Monday, Oct. 18th, 1869.
My dearest Macready,
I duly received your letter nearly a fortnight ago, with the greatest interest and pleasure. Above all things I am delighted with the prospect of seeing you here next summer; a prospect which has been received with nine times nine and one more by the whole house. You will hardly know the place again, it is so changed. You are not expected to admire, but thereisa conservatory building at this moment—be still, my soul!
This leaves me in the preliminary agonies of a new book, which I hope to begin publishing (in twelve numbers, not twenty) next March. The coming readings being all in London, and being, after the first fortnight, only once a week, will divert my attention very little, I hope.
Harry has just gone up to Cambridge again, and I hope will get a fellowship in good time.
Wills is much gratified by your remembrance, and sends you his warm regard. He wishes me to represent that he is very little to be pitied. That he suffers no pain, scarcely inconvenience, even, so long as he is idle. That he likes idleness exceedingly. He has bought a country place by Welwyn in Hertfordshire, near Lytton's, and takes possession presently.
My boy Sydney is now a second lieutenant, the youngest in the Service, I believe. He has the highest testimonials as an officer.
You may be quite sure there will be no international racing in American waters. Oxford knows better, or I am mistaken. The Harvard crew were a very good set of fellows, and very modest.
Ryland of Birmingham doesn't look a day older, and was full of interest in you, and asked me to remind you of him. By-the-bye, at Elkington's I saw a pair of immense tea-urns from a railway station (Stafford), sent there to be repaired. They were honeycombed within in all directions, and had been supplying the passengers, under the active agency of hot water, with decomposed lead, copper, and a few other deadly poisons, for heaven knows how many years!
I must leave off in a hurry to catch the post, after a hard day's work.
Ever, my dearest Macready,Your most affectionate and attached.
Charles Dickenspassed his last Christmas and New Year's Day at Gad's Hill, with a party of family and friends, in the usual way, except that he was suffering again from an attack of the foot trouble, particularly on Christmas Day, when he was quite disabled by it and unable to walk at all—able only to join the party in the evening by keeping his room all day. However, he was better in a day or two, and early in January he went to London, where he had taken the house of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Milner Gibson, for the season.
His series of "Farewell Readings" at St. James's Hall began in January, and ended on the 16th March. He was writing "Edwin Drood" also, and was, of course, constantly occupied with "All the Year Round" work. In the beginning of January, he fulfilled his promise of paying a second visit to Birmingham and making a speech, of which he writes in his last letter to Mr. Macready.
For his last reading he gave the "Christmas Carol" and "The Trial" from "Pickwick," and at the end of the evening he addressed a few farewell words to his audience. It was a memorable and splendid occasion. He was very deeply affected by the loving enthusiasm of his greeting, and it was a real sorrow to him to give up for ever the personal associations with thousands of the readers of his books. But when the pain, mingled with pleasure, of this last reading was over, he felt greatly the relief of having undisturbed time for his own quieter pursuits, and looked forward to writing the last numbers of "Edwin Drood" at Gad's Hill, where he was to return in June.
The last public appearance of any kind that he made was at the Royal Academy dinner in May. He was at the time far from well, but he made a great effort to be present and to speak, from his strong desire to pay a tribute to the memory of his dear old friend Mr. Maclise, who died in April.
Her Majesty having expressed a wish, conveyed through Mr. Helps (afterwards Sir Arthur Helps), to have a personal interview with Charles Dickens, he accompanied Mr. Helps to Buckingham Palace one afternoon in March. He was most graciously and kindly received by her Majesty, and came away with a hope that the visit had been mutually agreeable. The Queen presented him with a copy of her "Journal in the Highlands," with an autograph inscription. And he had afterwards the pleasure of requesting her acceptance of a set of his books. He attended alevéeheld by the Prince of Wales in April, and the last time he dined out in London was at a party given by Lord Houghton for the King of the Belgians and the Prince of Wales, who had both expressed a desire to meet Charles Dickens. All through the season he had been suffering, at intervals, from the swollen foot, and on this occasion it was so bad, that up to the last moment it was very doubtful whether he could fulfil his engagement.
We have very few letters for this year, and none of any very particular interest, but we give them all, as they arethe last.
Mr. S. L. Fildes was his "new illustrator," to whom he alludes in a note to Mr. Frith; we also give a short note to Mr. Fildes himself.
The correspondence of Charles Dickens with Mrs. Dallas Glyn, the celebrated actress, for whom he had a great friendship, is so much on the subject of her own business, that we have only been able to select two notes of any public interest.
In explanation ofthe last letter, we give an extract from a letter addressed toThe Daily Newsby Mr. J. M. Makeham, soon after the death of Charles Dickens, as follows:"That the public may exactly understand the circumstances under which Charles Dickens's letter to me was written, I am bound to explain that it is in reply to a letter which I addressed to him in reference to a passage in the tenth chapter of "Edwin Drood," respecting which I ventured to suggest that he had, perhaps, forgotten that the figure of speech alluded to by him, in a way which, to my certain knowledge, was distasteful to some of his admirers, was drawn from a passage of Holy Writ which is greatly reverenced by a large number of his countrymen as a prophetic description of the sufferings of our Saviour."
The MS. of the little "History of the New Testament" is now in the possession of his eldest daughter. She has (together with her aunt) received many earnest entreaties, both from friends and strangers, that this history might be allowed to be published, for the benefit of other children.
These many petitions have his daughter's fullest sympathy. But she knows that her father wrote this historyonlyfor his own children, that it was his particular wish that it never should be published, and she therefore holds this wish as sacred and irrevocable.
Mr. W. H. Wills.
5,Hyde Park Place, London, W.,Sunday, Jan. 23rd, 1870.
My dear Wills,
In the note I had from you about Nancy and Sikes, you seem to refer to some other note you had written me. Therefore I think it well merely to mention that I have received no other note.
I do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking (even if you had had no cough) under the wearing circumstances. It was a very curious scene. The actors and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty) mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience.I set myself to carrying out of themselves and their observation, those who were bent on watching how the effects were got; and I believe I succeeded. Coming back to it again, however, I feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously. My ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under this effort to one hundred and twelve. Besides which, it takes me ten or twelve minutes to get my wind back at all; I being, in the meantime, like the man who lost the fight—in fact, his express image. Frank Beard was in attendance to make divers experiments to report to Watson; and although, as you know, he stopped it instantly when he found me at Preston, he was very much astonished by the effects of the reading on the reader.
So I hope you may be able to come and hear it before it is silent for ever. It is done again on the evenings of the 1st February, 15th February, and 8th March. I hope, now I have got over the mornings, that I may be able to work on my book. But up to this time the great preparation required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice a week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me.
I have something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see) write plainly. I sent a word to poor Robert Chambers,[32]and I send my love to Mrs. Wills.