Item Info

Accession Number: 86-2810
Physical Description: [1] page
Transcription:

Paris. Saturday Twenty Second November, 1862

My Dear Horne. I am here until Christmas, and have been abroad and about, for several weeks. Your letter reached me not long ago. I have considered its main subject carefully, and believe that under the circumstances an attempt to secure your appointment to the on-existent office would be quite hopeless. That my interference would not advance the matter, I am convinced. Official luminaries have no liking for me who laid my impious hand on the sacred Circumlocution Office. Perfectly well knowing the genuine nature of the claims you set forth in your letter, I would have (nevertheless) approached the illustrious presence of Tape with my testimony to them, if there had been any Archimedes standing-point from which to work a lever. But, as I see the case, there is none. Nor can I imagine the likelihood of your friends in England being of two minds on the question.

Again I think you for your advice as to Australian Readings, which I shall not fail to bear in mind. I cannot resolve altogether to abandon the idea, and yet it is immensely difficult to resolve to pursue it.

My Dear Horne

Faithfully Yours

Charles Dickens

MssDate: Saturday Twenty second November, 1862
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

Copy [by Horne?] of an ALs to R.H. Horne. 

Horne wanted a position as the chair of English Literature at the new University of Melbourne, only created two decades later. Horne's application would have been to the Royal Literary Fund, and he must have asked Dickens to plea on his behalf.

CD's reference to "Tape" alludes to his "Red Tape" of Household Words, 15 Feb 1851, 11, 481.

Archimedes standing-point: boast of Archimedes (c. 287-212  BC): "give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth."

(all from Pilgrim vol. 10, p. 165n)

Recipient: Horne, R. H. (Richard H.), 1802-1884
Provenance: Sotheby Sale 24-25 July 72 lot 468 thru Maggs

Bibliography:

 The British Academy Pilgrim Edition: The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Ten, 1862-1864. Graham Storey, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, p. 165.

Country: Country:France
City/Town/Township:Paris

Creation Year: 1862
Call Number: DL H783 1862-11-22
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author
Horne, R. H. (Richard H.), 1802-1884