Item Info

Accession Number: 87-676
Physical Description: [4] pages
Transcription:

  Devonshire Terrace
                                                       Eighteenth April 1844.
My Dear Mrs. Smithson.
    I send you the long-promised Carol. Better now, I hope, than never.
    I think it best, on consideration, not to send you the other books we spoke of. You will have enough to occupy your thoughts just now, I do not doubt, without them. And when you come to town, you will be better able to judge of what you wish to know, by going with us (as I hope you will) on Sunday Mornings, twice, or thrice, than if you read a Library. I cannot reconcile it to myself to influence anybody's mind on such a subject. There would be happier lives and happier Deaths, perhaps, if we read our Saviour's preaching a little more, and let each other alone. If men invest the Deity with their own passions, so much the worse for them. He remains the same; and if there be any Truth in anything about us, and it be not all one vast deceit, he is full of Mercy and Compassion, and looks to what his creatures do, and not to what they think.
    I was in hopes our house would have suited you for a twelvemonth; and thought it would be like a kind of Home to you. Since you were here, we have made a pretty bedchamber of the Breakfast Room.
    Thompson wrote me, however, a few days since, that there were not bedrooms enough for you, and that he was coming up house-hunting. I am on the lookout for him.
    I shrewdly suspect there was a Concert at Manchester last night - and that she played there - and that he went. 
    Here I put my finger on the side of my nose, and pull up; with love to beauteous Bill, and my Glorious Godchild whom I have proclaimed in the highways as being in all respects a Brilliant Baby.
    Let us have another to match, and we'll get on happily yet.
                                                                                    Always Your faithful friend
                                                                                               Charles Dickens
Mrs. Smithson.

MssDate: Eighteenth April 1844.
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Recipient: Smithson, Elizabeth, 1811?-1860
Provenance: Benoliel, Mrs. D. Jacques 12/56

Bibliography:

The Letters of Charles Dickens, Pilgrim Edition, Volume Four, 1844-1846, p. 108.

Country: Creation Place Note:Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870
Country:England
City/Town/Township:London

Call Number: DL Sm69e 1844-04-18
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author