Item Info

Accession Number: 87-1684
Physical Description: [3] pages
Material: paper
Transcription:

  Gad’s Hill Place,
  Higham by Rochester, Kent.
  Thursday Eighteenth January 1866
My Dear Kent.
  I had a – what shall I call it – magnetic misgiving that you were in bed! I felt quite sure of it yesterday, and was not in the least surprised when I received your note this morning.
  I cannot tell you how grieved we all are, here, to know that you are suffering again. Your patient tone however, and the hopefulness and forbearance of Ferguson’s course, gives us some reassurance. Apropos of which latter reference, I dined with Ferguson at the Lord Mayor’s, last Tuesday, and had a grimly-distracted impulse upon me to defy the Toastmaster and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when I sat pining under the imbecility of a variety of Constitutional and Corporational idiots. I did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in proposing the Lady Mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from the Company’s response to the reference. O! No man will ever know under what provocations to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation, I suffered at the hands of the renowned Mr. Göschen: - feebly complacent in the uniform of Madame Tussaud’s Own Military Waxers, and almost the worst speaker I ever heard in my life! Mary and Georgina sitting on either side of me, urged me to “look pleased.” I replied in expressions not to be repeated. Shee (the Judge) was just as good and graceful, as He (the Member) was bad and gawky.
  My mind is at present divided on the subject whether I shall sell myself; - not to the Arch Enemy, but to a London Proposer for five and twenty readings. I don’t like the trouble, but the money looms large.
  Bulwer’s Lost Tales of Miletus, a most (I can’t write to day) noble book! He is an extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder.
  The Master of Ravenswood an immense success for Fechter. It will put him soundly on his legs, long before its run is out.
  It is of no use writing to you about yourself, my Dear Kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so I have gone scratching (with an execrable pen) about and about you. But I come back to you, to let you know that the reputation of this house as a Convalescent Hospital, stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered health and spirits here, swiftly. Try us. Only try us, and we are content to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result.
  Ever affectionately Yours
  Charles Dickens

MssDate: Thursday Eighteenth January 1866
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Recipient: Kent, Charles, 1823-1902
Provenance: Hamill & Barker 5/1955, Matlack Fund (album of 30 letters).

Bibliography:

Volume 11, pp. 139-40, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey ; associate editors, W.J. Carlton … [et al.].

Country: Creation Place Note:Gad's Hill Place
Country:England
City/Town/Township:Higham by Rochester, Kent

Call Number: DL K419 1866-01-18
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author