Volume Iii Part 74 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Miss Power.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _December 15th, 1856._

MY DEAR MARGUERITE,

I am not _quite_ clear about the story; not because it is otherwise than exceedingly pretty, but because I am rather in a difficult position as to stories just now. Besides beginning a long one by Collins with the new year (which will last five or six months), I have, as I always have at this time, a considerable residue of stories written for the Christmas number, not suitable to it, and yet available for the general purposes of ”Household Words.” This limits my choice for the moment to stories that have some decided specialties (or a great deal of story) in them.

But I will look over the acc.u.mulation before you come, and I hope you will never see your little friend again but in print.

You will find us expecting you on the night of the twenty-fourth, and heartily glad to welcome you. The most terrific preparations are in hand for the play on Twelfth Night. There has been a carpenter's shop in the garden for six weeks; a painter's shop in the school-room; a gasfitter's shop all over the bas.e.m.e.nt; a dressmaker's shop at the top of the house; a tailor's shop in my dressing-room. Stanfield has been incessantly on scaffoldings for two months; and your friend has been writing ”Little Dorrit,” etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was turned upside-down by the genie.

Kindest love from all, and from me.

Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Christmas Eve, 1856._

MY DEAR SIR,

I cannot leave your letter unanswered, because I am really anxious that you should understand why I cannot comply with your request.

Scarcely a week pa.s.ses without my receiving requests from various quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by all the processes ever invented. Apart from my having an invincible objection to the multiplication of my countenance in the shop-windows, I have not, between my avocations and my needful recreation, the time to comply with these proposals. At this moment there are three cases out of a vast number, in which I have said: ”If I sit at all, it shall be to you first, to you second, and to you third.” But I a.s.sure you, I consider myself almost as unlikely to go through these three conditional achievements as I am to go to China. Judge when I am likely to get to Mr. Watkins!

I highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with my writings. I doubt if I have a more genial reader in the world.

Very faithfully yours.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Of Mr. Wilkie Collins.

[24] This note was written after hearing from Mr. Forster of his intended marriage.

PROLOGUE TO ”THE LIGHTHOUSE.”

(Spoken by CHARLES d.i.c.kENS.)

_Slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down._

A story of those rocks where doomed s.h.i.+ps come To cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home, Where solitary men, the long year through-- The wind their music and the brine their view-- Warn mariners to shun the beacon-light; A story of those rocks is here to-night.

Eddystone lighthouse

[_Exterior view discovered._

In its ancient form; Ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm That s.h.i.+ver'd it to nothing; once again Behold outgleaming on the angry main!