Item Info

Accession Number: 86-2774
Physical Description: [8] pages
Transcription:

 London, 1 Devonshire Terrace

York Gate Regents Park

Seventeenth June 1848.

 

My Dear Moir,

When I look at your letter, and see “18 Feb” for the date, I become so red in the face that if you were by, I think you would treat me for apoplexy. And yet I have been, ever since its receipt, so occupied in one way or other that although I have been thinking of it almost every day, I have never laid violent hands upon a pen, to answer it.

--Because I have always had the intention of writing at such tremendous length! But I never will cherish such an idea again, for nothing leads so surely to interminable delay. And therefore I write at anything but tremendous length now.

Your pleasant account of yourself and your family and your life, has interested me extremely. And though I grudge any occupation of your time that prevents the devotion of your genius to Literature, even I cannot regret its being so well employed.

My oldest daughter is little more than half as old as yours, and she has one sister and five brothers representing a little flight of stairs of which the bottom step is one year old. They are al well, all good, and all happy. I am not rich, for the great expences of my position have been mine alone from the first, and the Lion’s share of its great profits has been gorged by the booksellers. But I have changed all that, within these three years or so,--have worked back half of all my copyrights which had gone from me before I knew their worth—and have got, by some few thousand pounds (I could count the thousands on one hand) ahead of the world. Dombey has been the greatest success I have ever achieved. Although Literature as a profession has no distinct status in England, I am bound to say that what I experience of its recognition, all through Society, in my own person, is honorable, ample, and independent. I find that to make no exacting assertion of its claims, on the one hand—and steadily to take my stand by it, on the other, as a worthy calling, and my sole fortune—is to do right, and to take sufficient rank. Go where I will, in out of the way places and odd corners of the country, I always find something of personal affection in people whom I have never seen, mixed up with my public reputation. This is the best part of it, and it makes me very happy.

One phase of this I have seen so often, and felt so much, that I can’t help giving YOU a little illustration of it. i was down at Leeds some months ago, on an errand similar to that which took me to Glasgow; and when the Meeting was over, the people cheered very much. One gentleman on the platform, in particular, when they had all done and I was going out, cried very earnestly for “another cheer for the Author of Little Nell”. When I got home to the house I was staying at, I asked the lady of it if that gentleman had lost a child, ever. She said yes, a little daughter—lately—and that he had held to that story as a sort of comfort, ever since. Poor Basil Hall lost a little boy for whom had had a great love—I think his insanity began about that time—and he wrote out all the secret grief and trial of his heart to me, wherever he went afterwards. Always referring to the same book.

--There! After so much about myself, I begin to be afraid that you will repent of having been so confidential to me. And yet it comes so naturally, after another reading of your letter, that I don’t find my apoplectic symptom return, now that I have looked it over, again.

I think, about the middle of July, of paying a hasty visit to Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Amateur Company whereof I am Manager are coming down to perform there, in furtherance of a scheme for the benefit of Sheridan Knowles, who greatly needs it. I shall have little time at my own disposal, but I hope I shall see you—and I hope you will see us too.

There is nothing new in London. Chartist fears and rumours shake us, now and then, but I suspect the Government make the most of such things for their own purpose, and know better than anybody else how little vitality there is in them. Have you read Forster’s Godsmith, and, if so, don’t you think it very good? When will there be no patients in Musselburgh and thereabouts? And then we will smoke a Cigar together on the top of Saint Pauls. If in Autumn, all the better, just when she

--passes, bright at first

In eye, and firm of step, her cincture rich,

Of wheat-ear and of vine-wreath intertwined.

--as an obscure poet writes.

Mrs. Dickens bets to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Moir and to you. I am always, with affectionate sincerity,

My Dear Moir

Faithfully Your Friend

Charles Dickens

MssDate: Seventeenth June 1848
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Recipient: Moir, D. M. (David Macbeth), 1798-1851
Provenance: Sotheby 23/24 June 75 Lot 305 thru Maggs

Bibliography:

 The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849, ed. Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981,  p. 343 

Country: Creation Place Note:1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate Regents Park
Country:England
City/Town/Township:London

Creation Year: 1848
Call Number: DL M728 1848-06-17
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author