Volume Iii Part 29 (1/2)
Faithfully yours always.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]
JUNCTION HOUSE, BRIGHTON, _March 2nd, 1848._
MY DEAR MACREADY,
We have migrated from the Bedford and come here, where we are very comfortably (not to say gorgeously) accommodated. Mrs. Macready is certainly better already, and I really have very great hopes that she will come back in a condition so blooming, as to necessitate the presentation of a piece of plate to the undersigned trainer.
You mean to come down on Sunday and on Sunday week. If you don't, I shall immediately take the Victoria, and start Mr. ----, of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, as a smas.h.i.+ng tragedian. Pray don't impose upon me this cruel necessity.
I think Lamartine, so far, one of the best fellows in the world; and I have lively hopes of that great people establis.h.i.+ng a n.o.ble republic.
Our court had best be careful not to overdo it in respect of sympathy with ex-royalty and ex-n.o.bility. Those are not times for such displays, as, it strikes me, the people in some of our great towns would be apt to express pretty plainly.
However, we'll talk of all this on these Sundays, and Mr. ---- shall _not_ be raised to the pinnacle of fame.
Ever affectionately yours, My dear Macready.
[Sidenote: Editor of _The Sun_.]
DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK, _Friday, April 14th, 1848._
_Private._
Mr. Charles d.i.c.kens presents his compliments to the Editor of _The Sun_, and begs that gentleman will have the goodness to convey to the writer of the notice of ”Dombey and Son,” in last evening's paper, Mr.
d.i.c.kens's warmest acknowledgments and thanks. The sympathy expressed in it is so very earnestly and unaffectedly stated, that it is particularly welcome and gratifying to Mr. d.i.c.kens, and he feels very desirous indeed to convey that a.s.surance to the writer of that frank and genial farewell.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. Charles M. Kent.]
1, DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK, _April 18th, 1848._
DEAR SIR,
Pray let me repeat to you personally what I expressed in my former note, and allow me to a.s.sure you, as an ill.u.s.tration of my sincerity, that I have never addressed a similar communication to anybody except on one occasion.
Faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. John Forster.]
DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, _Sat.u.r.day, April 22nd, 1848._
MY DEAR FORSTER,[7]
I finished Goldsmith yesterday, after dinner, having read it from the first page to the last with the greatest care and attention.
As a picture of the time, I really think it impossible to give it too much praise. It seems to me to be the very essence of all about the time that I have ever seen in biography or fiction, presented in most wise and humane lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. I have never liked Johnson half so well. n.o.body's contempt for Boswell ought to be capable of increase, but I have never seen him in my mind's eye half so plainly. The introduction of him is quite a masterpiece. I should point to that, if I didn't know the author, as being done by somebody with a remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated, and a most admirable and fanciful power of communicating it to another. All about Reynolds is charming; and the first account of the Literary Club and of Beauclerc as excellent a piece of description as ever I read in my life. But to read the book is to be in the time. It lives again in as fresh and lively a manner as if it were presented on an impossibly good stage by the very best actors that ever lived, or by the real actors come out of their graves on purpose.
And as to Goldsmith himself, and _his_ life, and the tracing of it out in his own writings, and the manful and dignified a.s.sertion of him without any sobs, whines, or convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a n.o.ble achievement, of which, apart from any private and personal affection for you, I think (and really believe) I should feel proud, as one who had no indifferent perception of these books of his--to the best of my remembrance--when little more than a child. I was a little afraid in the beginning, when he committed those very discouraging imprudences, that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately; but I very soon got over that fear, and found reason in every page to admire the sense, calmness, and moderation with which you make the love and admiration of the reader cl.u.s.ter about him from his youth, and strengthen with his strength--and weakness too, which is better still.
I don't quite agree with you in two small respects. First, I question very much whether it would have been a good thing for every great man to have had his Boswell, inasmuch as I think that two Boswells, or three at most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished people about them for ever restless and distrustful. I can imagine a succession of Boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friends.h.i.+p.