Item Info

Accession Number: 63-0696
Physical Description: [4] pages
Material: paper
Transcription:

  Gad’s Hill Place,
  Higham by Rochester, Kent.
  Saturday Sixteenth May, 1868.
My Dear Alfred. On coming home from America where I have been reading (I have been absent six months), I found your letter of the 17^th February waiting for me. It was but newly arrived however. I have lost no time in communicating with Plorn, and as his mind is quite made up to try Bush life in earnest, I have arranged that he shall so come out to you as to arrive in Melbourne about Christmas – as you recommend. He is now at the Agricultural College at Cirencester, but he will leave there in July. I think it best that he should bestir himself about his ship, passage, outfit, and so forth, and should have as little help as possible. When he comes home, therefore, I shall set him to work in these respects, and he shall write to you and give you all particulars. You must not charge yourself with the cost of going to Melbourne to meet him, but must leave that to me. For which purpose, you will find – on and after your receipt of Plorn’s letter – fifty pounds placed by me to your credit at the Bank with which you have already had dealings.
  You will find him able to turn his hand to a good many things. He can ride, do a little carpentering, make a horse shoe, and job handily in various ways. He has some little knowledge of useful chemistry also. He is well grown and strong, and has many requisites for the life, if he take to it steadily. By this expression, I don’t mean that he is in the least likely to go wild or do wrong; I simply mean that he may not take to the life when he comes face to face with it. Of that, we can form no accurate judgment until he tries it. You will observe him, and will soon see how he tends. He will have ready money in his pocket when he lands; and, in case of accident or sudden emergency of any kind, he shall bring out an authority to the Bank to honor your joint drafts to the extent of One Hundred Pounds. Of course you will not draw more of this reserve than is quite necessary. But the Fifty Pounds first mentioned on the other side will be absolutely your own.
  Charley Collins, I am sorry to say, is very ill. Besides having spasmodic asthma badly, he has some mysterious illness (originating in the brain, I fancy) which weakens him with continual sickness. He is in bed at present, but is to be got down here as soon as he can be moved. Harry, having imprudently taken a jump at Wimbledon (the very thing he was cautioned by the Doctors on no account to do) has damaged his weak knee again, and is lying motionless in his bed. I am afraid it will be a slow and long affair, and that it will be as much as he can do to go up at Cambridge in October. Mr. Fechter has broken down at the Adelphi, after playing in No Thoroughfare 120 odd nights, and is going to Paris, really very ill. Wilkie has had gout in his eyes, and has suffered greatly all the Winter. Mr. Wills had had a bad fall, out hunting, and is ordered absolute rest for months to come. This completes the catalogue of calamities all the rest of us being in flourishing condition.
  Nothing can exceed Mr. Rusden’s kindness. Plorn shall bear a letter to him from me.
  Go on as you have begun – get on as you have got on – and please God you will do honor to our name in the New World.
  Dearest Love from all
  Ever Your affectionate Father
  Charles Dickens

MssDate: Saturday Sixteenth May, 1868
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

Two and a half lines on the last page were apparently painted over, possibly by Alfred before he gave the letter to his friend "George" (DCL D554a1 9999-99-99), according to a footnote on page 111 of Volume 12 of the Pilgrim Edition.

Recipient: Dickens, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson, 1845-1912
Provenance: Christie's, lot 215, 7/24/1963, Quaker Chemical Corp. Foundation Fund.

Bibliography:

Volume 12, pp. 110-111, 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 D554a2 1868-05-16
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author