The Letters of Charles Dickens Volume I Part 39

5, HYDE PARK PLACE, _Monday, 14th February, 1870._

MY DEAR LYTTON,

I ought to have mentioned in my hurried note to you, that my knowledge of the consultation[108] in question only preceded yours by certain hours; and that Longman asked me if I would make the design known to you, as he thought it might be a liberty to address you otherwise. This I did therefore.

The cla.s.s of writers to whom you refer at the close of your note, have no copyright, and do not come within my case at all. I quite agree with you as to their propensities and deserts.

Indeed, I suppose in the main that there is very little difference between our opinions. I do not think the present Government worse than another, and I think it better than another by the presence of Mr.

Gladstone; but it appears to me that our system fails.

Ever yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Frederic Chapman.]

5, HYDE PARK PLACE, _Monday, 14th March, 1870._

DEAR FREDERIC CHAPMAN,

Mr. Fildes has been with me this morning, and without complaining of ---- or expressing himself otherwise than as being obliged to him for his care in No. 1, represents that there is a brother-student of his, a wood-engraver, perfectly acquainted with his style and well understanding his meaning, who would render him better.

I have replied to him that there can be no doubt that he has a claim beyond dispute to our employing whomsoever he knows will present him in his best aspect. Therefore, we must make the change; the rather because the fellow-student in question has engraved Mr. Fildes' most successful drawings. .h.i.therto.

Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Mackay.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"

_Thursday, 21st April, 1870._

MY DEAR MACKAY,

I have placed "G.o.d's Acre." The prose paper, "The False Friend," has lingered, because it seems to me that the idea is to be found in an introduced story of mine called "The Baron of Grogzwig" in "Pickwick."

Be pleasant with the Scottish people in handling Johnson, because I love them.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Sir John Bowring.]

GAD'S HILL, _Thursday, 5th May, 1870._

MY DEAR SIR JOHN,

I send you many cordial thanks for your note, and the very curious drawing accompanying it. I ought to tell you, perhaps, that the opium smoking I have described, I saw (exactly as I have described it, penny ink-bottle and all) down in Shadwell this last autumn. A couple of the Inspectors of Lodging-Houses knew the woman and took me to her as I was making a round with them to see for myself the working of Lord Shaftesbury's Bill.

Believe me, always faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. J. B. Buckstone.]

[109]_Sunday, 15th May, 1870._

MY DEAR BUCKSTONE,

I send a duplicate of this note to the Haymarket, in case it should miss you out of town. For a few years I have been liable, at wholly uncertain and incalculable times, to a severe attack of neuralgia in the foot, about once in the course of a year. It began in an injury to the finer muscles or nerves, occasioned by over-walking in the deep snow. When it comes on I cannot stand, and can bear no covering whatever on the sensitive place. One of these seizures is upon me now. Until it leaves me I could no more walk into St. James's Hall than I could fly in the air. I hope you will present my duty to the Prince of Wales, and a.s.sure his Royal Highness that nothing short of my being (most unfortunately) disabled for the moment would have prevented my attending, as trustee of the Fund,[110] at the dinner, and warmly expressing my poor sense of the great and inestimable service his Royal Highness renders to a most deserving inst.i.tution by so kindly commending it to the public.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Rusden.]

ATHENaeUM, _Friday Evening, 20th May, 1870._

MY DEAR MR. RUSDEN,

I received your most interesting and clear-sighted letter about Plorn just before the departure of the last mail from here to you. I did not answer then because another incoming mail was nearly due, and I expected (knowing Plorn so well) that some communication from him such as he made to you would come to me. I was not mistaken. The same arguing of the squatter question--vegetables and all--appeared. This gave me an opportunity of touching on those points by this mail, without in the least compromising you. I cannot too completely express my concurrence with your excellent idea that his correspondence with you should be regarded as confidential. Just as I could not possibly suggest a word more neatly to the point, or more thoughtfully addressed, to such a young man than your reply to his letter, I hope you will excuse my saying that it is a perfect model of tact, good sense, and good feeling.

I had been struck by his persistently ignoring the possibility of his holding any other position in Australasia than his present position, and had inferred from it a homeward tendency. What is most curious to me is that he is very sensible, and yet does not seem to understand that he has qualified himself for no public examinations in the old country, and could not possibly hold his own against any compet.i.tion for anything to which I could get him nominated.

But I must not trouble you about my boys as if they were yours. It is enough that I can never thank you for your goodness to them in a generous consideration of me.

I believe the truth as to France to be that a citizen Frenchman never forgives, and that Napoleon will never live down the _coup d'etat_. This makes it enormously difficult for any well-advised English newspaper to support him, and pretend not to know on what a volcano his throne is set. Informed as to his designs on the one hand, and the perpetual uneasiness of his police on the other (to say nothing of a doubtful army), _The Times_ has a difficult game to play. My own impression is that if it were played too boldly for him, the old deplorable national antagonism would revive in his going down. That the wind will pa.s.s over his Imperiality on the sands of France I have not the slightest doubt.

In no country on the earth, but least of all there, can you seize people in their houses on political warrants, and kill in the streets, on no warrant at all, without raising a gigantic Nemesis--not very reasonable in detail, perhaps, but none the less terrible for that.

The commonest dog or man driven mad is a much more alarming creature than the same individuality in a sober and commonplace condition.

Your friend ---- ---- is setting the world right generally all round (including the flattened ends, the two poles), and, as a Minister said to me the other day, "has the one little fault of omniscience."

You will probably have read before now that I am going to be everything the Queen can make me.[111] If my authority be worth anything believe on it that I am going to be nothing but what I am, and that that includes my being as long as I live,

Your faithful and heartily obliged.

[Sidenote: Mr. Alfred Tennyson d.i.c.kens.]

ATHENaeUM CLUB, _Friday Night, 20th May, 1870._

MY DEAR ALFRED,[112]

I have just time to tell you under my own hand that I invited Mr. Bear to a dinner of such guests as he would naturally like to see, and that we took to him very much, and got on with him capitally.

I am doubtful whether Plorn is taking to Australia. Can you find out his real mind? I notice that he always writes as if his present life were the be-all and the end-all of his emigration, and as if I had no idea of you two becoming proprietors, and aspiring to the first positions in the colony, without casting off the old connection.

From Mr. Bear I had the best accounts of you. I told him that they did not surprise me, for I had unbounded faith in you. For which take my love and blessing.