Item Info

Accession Number: 87-541
Physical Description: [3] pages
Material: paper
Transcription:

 Tavistock House

     Tuesday Eighth September 1856

Sir.
        I am sorry than in the hurry of being newly returned to town after a long absence, and having a great deal to do, I could not wait for you this morning.
       It is unnecessary for me to assure you that I feel a real interest in the project to which your letter invites my attention. I regret to add, however, that I cannot comply with your request. My time is at present so fully occupied that I am obliged to forego all such engagements; and if I were to make an exception in this case, I should imme-diately be reminded of conditional promises, and overwhelmed by a flood of correspondence, for which I have no leisure.
      With this sufficient reason for avoiding public meetings while my own avocations occupy my time and attention, it is scarcely necessary perhaps to hint at any other. But in my desire to be quite frank with you and the friends you represent, I will add that even if I had been more at leisure, I doubt very much whether I should not, on consideration, have requested you to excuse my compliance with your proposal. I am not at all clear in the first place that I have right to assume such a position in reference to an entertainment over the arrangements of which I have no power, and in the directions of which I assume no responsibility. In the second place I most earnestly desire to see a working man in that position-one of your own body-personally identified with the merit of the scheme and with the working of it out. The recognition of such a President would have a meaning in it, and a becoming expression of self-reliance, which I think would be as agreeable to many thousands as it would to me. I confess to having an uneasy feeling in all such cases, that the term “self-supporting” includes, of right, much more than the mere money question; and I wish your Society would be self supporting in the much higher sense of putting its own men and its own members in its high places. If I were then invited as its guest, to take my place among the general auditory, listen to the music, and bear my testimony to the humanizing and improving influences of such good efforts, through such channels as I have and improving influences of such good efforts, through such channels as I have open to me, I should respond with great pleasure.
            I am Sir
                  Faithfully Yours
                 Charles Dickens

Mr. Molineux. 

MssDate: Tuesday Eighth September 1856
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

The project refers to a concert of "cheap adn good music" for "the people" with singers, small choir, and organ was held on Monday, 6 Oct "under the patronage of eminent men of letters" among others, at St Martin's hall (Athenaeum, 11 Oct). A notice in The Times 7 Oct 57, stated that 45 “Monday Evening Concerts for the People” had been given the previous season, attended by 50,000: their aim had been “to maintain the influence of music in promoting the moral elevation of the people”.  The notice appealed to subscriptions to the Guarantee Fund, to liquidate the Committee’s debt of £200 and to enable the Concerts to continue. The venture was the forerunner of Chappell’s very successful Monday and Saturday Popular Concerts (“Monday Pops”), the former started in Dec 1858. 

 

Recipient: Molyneux, Thomas John
Provenance: Hamilton, 9/20/56, Matlack Fund.

Bibliography:

Volume 8, pp. 182-183, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey; associate editors, W.J. Carlton…[et al.].

Call Number: DL M739 1856-09-08
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author