Volume Ii Part 61 (1/2)

In expressing my conviction that you deserve the place, and are in every way qualified for it, I found my testimony upon as accurate a knowledge of your character and abilities as anyone can possibly have acquired. In my editors.h.i.+p both of ”Household Words” and ”All the Year Round,” you know very well that I have invariably offered you those subjects of political and social interest to write upon, in which integrity, exactness, a remarkable power of generalising evidence and balancing facts, and a special clearness in stating the case, were indispensable on the part of the writer. My confidence in your powers has never been misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you have never been hasty or wrong. Whatever trust you have undertaken has been so completely discharged, that it has become my habit to read your proofs rather for my own edification than (as in other cases) for the detection of some slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the subject.

That your literary work has never interfered with the discharge of your official duties, I may a.s.sume to be at least as well known to your colleagues as it is to me. It is idle to say that if the post were in my gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. An excellent public servant in your literary sphere of action, I should be heartily glad if you could have this new opportunity of distinguis.h.i.+ng yourself in the same character. And this is at least unselfish in me, for I suppose I should then lose you?

Always faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton d.i.c.kens.]

LETTER TO HIS YOUNGEST SON ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR AUSTRALIA IN 1868.[27]

MY DEAREST PLORN,

I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are beat fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation.

What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and I have never slackened in it since.

Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others, as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour, than that you should.

I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men.

You will remember that you have never at home been wearied about religious observances or mere formalities. I have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the Christian religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it.

Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it.

I hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind father. You cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.

Your affectionate Father.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The Agricultural College, Cirencester.

[21] ”No Thoroughfare.”

[22] The Mr. H. F. Chorley so often mentioned was the well-known musical critic, and a dear and intimate friend of Charles d.i.c.kens and his family. We have no letters to him, Mr. Chorley having destroyed all his correspondence before his death.

[23] Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend. He was one of the dearest friends of Charles d.i.c.kens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters addressed to him are in existence.

[24] An American family of brothers and a sister who came to London to give a musical entertainment shortly after Charles d.i.c.kens's return from his first visit to America. He had a great interest in, and liking for, these young people.

[25] Cousin and adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. Austin.

[26] A model of a Swiss chalet, and a present from M. Charles Fechter, used by Charles d.i.c.kens as a summer writing-room.

[27] This letter has been already published by Mr. Forster in his ”Life.”

1869.

NARRATIVE.

The ”Farewell Readings” in town and country were resumed immediately after the beginning of this year, and were to have been continued until the end of May. The work was even harder than it had ever been. Charles d.i.c.kens began his country tour in Ireland early in January, and read continuously in all parts of England and Scotland until the end of April. A public dinner (in commemoration of his last readings in the town) was given to him at Liverpool on the 10th April. Besides all this severe country work, he was giving a series of readings at St. James's Hall, and reading the ”Murder” from ”Oliver Twist,” in London and in the country, frequently four times a week. In the second week of February, a sudden and unusually violent attack of the old trouble in his foot made it imperatively necessary to postpone a reading at St. James's Hall, and to delay for a day or two his departure for Scotland. The foot continued to cause him pain and inconvenience, but, as will be seen from his letters, he generally spoke of himself as otherwise well, until he arrived at Preston, where he was to read on the 22nd of April. The day before this appointed reading, he writes home of some grave symptoms which he had observed in himself, and had reported to his doctor, Mr. F.