Miscellaneous Papers
C >>
Charles Dickens >> Miscellaneous Papers
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6
The last line he wrote, and the last proof he corrected, are among
these papers through which I have so sorrowfully made my way. The
condition of the little pages of manuscript where Death stopped his
hand, shows that he had carried them about, and often taken them out
of his pocket here and there, for patient revision and
interlineation. The last words he corrected in print were, "And my
heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss". GOD grant that on that
Christmas Eve when he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up
his arms as he had been wont to do when very weary, some
consciousness of duty done and Christian hope throughout life humbly
cherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb, when he passed
away to his Redeemer's rest!
He was found peacefully lying as above described, composed,
undisturbed, and to all appearance asleep, on the twenty-fourth of
December 1863. He was only in his fifty-third year; so young a man
that the mother who blessed him in his first sleep blessed him in
his last. Twenty years before, he had written, after being in a
white squall:
And when, its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended,
And, as the sunrise splendid
Came blushing o'er the sea;
I thought, as day was breaking,
My little girls were waking,
And smiling, and making
A prayer at home for me.
Those little girls had grown to be women when the mournful day broke
that saw their father lying dead. In those twenty years of
companionship with him they had learned much from him; and one of
them has a literary course before her, worthy of her famous name.
On the bright wintry day, the last but one of the old year, he was
laid in his grave at Kensal Green, there to mingle the dust to which
the mortal part of him had returned, with that of a third child,
lost in her infancy years ago. The heads of a great concourse of
his fellow-workers in the Arts were bowed around his tomb.
ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
INTRODUCTION TO HER "LEGENDS AND LYRICS"
In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the
weekly journal Household Words, a short poem among the proffered
contributions, very different, as I thought, from the shoal of
verses perpetually setting through the office of such a periodical,
and possessing much more merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to
me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and
she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a
circulating library in the western district of London. Through this
channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was accepted, and
was invited to send another. She complied, and became a regular and
frequent contributor. Many letters passed between the journal and
Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never seen.
How we came gradually to establish, at the office of Household
Words, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered.
But we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was
governess in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and
returned; and that she had long been in the same family. We really
knew nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably
business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable: so I suppose
we insensibly invented the rest. For myself, my mother was not a
more real personage to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became.
This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number,
entitled The Seven Poor Travellers, was sent to press. Happening to
be going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, distinguished
in literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of
that number, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table,
that it contained a very pretty poem, written by a certain Miss
Berwick. Next day brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of
the poem to the mother of its writer, in its writer's presence; that
I had no such correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that
the name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss
Adelaide Anne Procter.
The anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to explain why
the parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to me for these
poor words of remembrance of their lamented child, strikingly
illustrates the honesty, independence, and quiet dignity, of the
lady's character. I had known her when she was very young; I had
been honoured with her father's friendship when I was myself a young
aspirant; and she had said at home, "If I send him, in my own name,
verses that he does not honestly like, either it will be very
painful to him to return them, or he will print them for papa's
sake, and not for their own. So I have made up my mind to take my
chance fairly with the unknown volunteers."
Perhaps it requires an editor's experience of the profoundly
unreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to accept unsuitable
articles--such as having been to school with the writer's husband's
brother-in-law, or having lent an alpenstock in Switzerland to the
writer's wife's nephew, when that interesting stranger had broken
his own--fully to appreciate the delicacy and the self-respect of
this resolution.
Some verses by Miss Procter had been published in the Book of
Beauty, ten years before she became Miss Berwick. With the
exception of two poems in the Cornhill Magazine, two in Good Words,
and others in a little book called A Chaplet of Verses (issued in
1862 for the benefit of a Night Refuge), her published writings
first appeared in Household Words, or All the Year Round. The
present edition contains the whole of her Legends and Lyrics, and
originates in the great favour with which they have been received by
the public.
Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of
October, 1825. Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an
age, that I have before me a tiny album made of small note-paper,
into which her favourite passages were copied for her by her
mother's hand before she herself could write. It looks as if she
had carried it about, as another little girl might have carried a
doll. She soon displayed a remarkable memory, and great quickness
of apprehension. When she was quite a young child, she learned with
facility several of the problems of Euclid. As she grew older, she
acquired the French, Italian, and German languages; became a clever
pianoforte player; and showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing.
But, as soon as she had completely vanquished the difficulties of
any one branch of study, it was her way to lose interest in it, and
pass to another. While her mental resources were being trained, it
was not at all suspected in her family that she had any gift of
authorship, or any ambition to become a writer. Her father had no
idea of her having ever attempted to turn a rhyme, until her first
little poem saw the light in print.
When she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary number
of books, and throughout her life she was always largely adding to
the number. In 1853 she went to Turin and its neighbourhood, on a
visit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic lady. As Miss Procter had
herself professed the Roman Catholic Faith two years before, she
entered with the greater ardour on the study of the Piedmontese
dialect, and the observation of the habits and manners of the
peasantry. In the former, she soon became a proficient. On the
latter head, I extract from her familiar letters written home to
England at the time, two pleasant pieces of description.
A BETROTHAL
"We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a description.
Last Tuesday we had just done dinner at about seven, and stepped out
into the balcony to look at the remains of the sunset behind the
mountains, when we heard very distinctly a band of music, which
rather excited my astonishment, as a solitary organ is the utmost
that toils up here. I went out of the room for a few minutes, and,
on my returning, Emily said, 'Oh! That band is playing at the
farmer's near here. The daughter is fiancee to-day, and they have a
ball.' I said, 'I wish I was going!' 'Well,' replied she, 'the
farmer's wife did call to invite us.' 'Then I shall certainly go,'
I exclaimed. I applied to Madame B., who said she would like it
very much, and we had better go, children and all. Some of the
servants were already gone. We rushed away to put on some shawls,
and put off any shred of black we might have about us (as the people
would have been quite annoyed if we had appeared on such an occasion
with any black), and we started. When we reached the farmer's,
which is a stone's throw above our house, we were received with
great enthusiasm; the only drawback being, that no one spoke French,
and we did not yet speak Piedmontese. We were placed on a bench
against the wall, and the people went on dancing. The room was a
large whitewashed kitchen (I suppose), with several large pictures
in black frames, and very smoky. I distinguished the Martyrdom of
Saint Sebastian, and the others appeared equally lively and
appropriate subjects. Whether they were Old Masters or not, and if
so, by whom, I could not ascertain. The band were seated opposite
us. Five men, with wind instruments, part of the band of the
National Guard, to which the farmer's sons belong. They played
really admirably, and I began to be afraid that some idea of our
dignity would prevent me getting a partner; so, by Madame B.'s
advice, I went up to the bride, and offered to dance with her. Such
a handsome young woman! Like one of Uwins's pictures. Very dark,
with a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale. The
children were already dancing, as well as the maids. After we came
to an end of our dance, which was what they called a Polka-Mazourka,
I saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of her fiance to ask
me to dance, which after a little hesitation he did. And admirably
he danced, as indeed they all did--in excellent time, and with a
little more spirit than one sees in a ball-room. In fact, they were
very like one's ordinary partners, except that they wore earrings
and were in their shirt-sleeves, and truth compels me to state that
they decidedly smelt of garlic. Some of them had been smoking, but
threw away their cigars when we came in. The only thing that did
not look cheerful was, that the room was only lighted by two or
three oil-lamps, and that there seemed to be no preparation for
refreshments. Madame B., seeing this, whispered to her maid, who
disengaged herself from her partner, and ran off to the house; she
and the kitchenmaid presently returning with a large tray covered
with all kinds of cakes (of which we are great consumers and always
have a stock), and a large hamper full of bottles of wine, with
coffee and sugar. This seemed all very acceptable. The fiancee was
requested to distribute the eatables, and a bucket of water being
produced to wash the glasses in, the wine disappeared very quickly--
as fast as they could open the bottles. But, elated, I suppose, by
this, the floor was sprinkled with water, and the musicians played a
Monferrino, which is a Piedmontese dance. Madame B. danced with the
farmer's son, and Emily with another distinguished member of the
company. It was very fatiguing--something like a Scotch reel. My
partner was a little man, like Perrot, and very proud of his
dancing. He cut in the air and twisted about, until I was out of
breath, though my attempts to imitate him were feeble in the
extreme. At last, after seven or eight dances, I was obliged to sit
down. We stayed till nine, and I was so dead beat with the heat
that I could hardly crawl about the house, and in an agony with the
cramp, it is so long since I have danced."
A MARRIAGE
The wedding of the farmer's daughter has taken place. We had hoped
it would have been in the little chapel of our house, but it seems
some special permission was necessary, and they applied for it too
late. They all said, "This is the Constitution. There would have
been no difficulty before!" the lower classes making the poor
Constitution the scapegoat for everything they don't like. So as it
was impossible for us to climb up to the church where the wedding
was to be, we contented ourselves with seeing the procession pass.
It was not a very large one, for, it requiring some activity to go
up, all the old people remained at home. It is not etiquette for
the bride's mother to go, and no unmarried woman can go to a
wedding--I suppose for fear of its making her discontented with her
own position. The procession stopped at our door, for the bride to
receive our congratulations. She was dressed in a shot silk, with a
yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold chain. In the
afternoon they sent to request us to go there. On our arrival we
found them dancing out of doors, and a most melancholy affair it
was. All the bride's sisters were not to be recognised, they had
cried so. The mother sat in the house, and could not appear. And
the bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand! The most
melancholy spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom was
decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted at all the distress.
We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and the bride crying
the whole time. The company did their utmost to enliven her by
firing pistols, but without success, and at last they began a series
of yells, which reminded me of a set of savages. But even this
delicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye
began. It was altogether so melancholy an affair that Madame B.
dropped a few tears, and I was very near it, particularly when the
poor mother came out to see the last of her daughter, who was
finally dragged off between her brother and uncle, with a last
explosion of pistols. As she lives quite near, makes an excellent
match, and is one of nine children, it really was a most desirable
marriage, in spite of all the show of distress. Albert was so
discomfited by it, that he forgot to kiss the bride as he had
intended to do, and therefore went to call upon her yesterday, and
found her very smiling in her new house, and supplied the omission.
The cook came home from the wedding, declaring she was cured of any
wish to marry--but I would not recommend any man to act upon that
threat and make her an offer. In a couple of days we had some rolls
of the bride's first baking, which they call Madonnas. The
musicians, it seems, were in the same state as the bridegroom, for,
in escorting her home, they all fell down in the mud. My wrath
against the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by finding that it is
considered bad luck if he does not get tipsy at his wedding."
Those readers of Miss Procter's poems who should suppose from their
tone that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast, would be
curiously mistaken. She was exceedingly humorous, and had a great
delight in humour. Cheerfulness was habitual with her, she was very
ready at a sally or a reply, and in her laugh (as I remember well)
there was an unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery.
She was perfectly unconstrained and unaffected: as modestly silent
about her productions, as she was generous with their pecuniary
results. She was a friend who inspired the strongest attachments;
she was a finely sympathetic woman, with a great accordant heart and
a sterling noble nature. No claim can be set up for her, thank God,
to the possession of any of the conventional poetical qualities.
She never by any means held the opinion that she was among the
greatest of human beings; she never suspected the existence of a
conspiracy on the part of mankind against her; she never recognised
in her best friends, her worst enemies; she never cultivated the
luxury of being misunderstood and unappreciated; she would far
rather have died without seeing a line of her composition in print,
than that I should have maundered about her, here, as "the Poet", or
"the Poetess".
With the recollection of Miss Procter as a mere child and as a
woman, fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my way
to the close of this brief record, avoiding its end. But, even as
the close came upon her, so must it come here.
Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be
dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favourite pursuits must
be balanced by action in the real world around her, she was
indefatigable in her endeavours to do some good. Naturally
enthusiastic, and conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her
Christian duty to her neighbour, she devoted herself to a variety of
benevolent objects. Now, it was the visitation of the sick, that
had possession of her; now, it was the sheltering of the houseless;
now, it was the elementary teaching of the densely ignorant; now, it
was the raising up of those who had wandered and got trodden under
foot; now, it was the wider employment of her own sex in the general
business of life; now, it was all these things at once. Perfectly
unselfish, swift to sympathise and eager to relieve, she wrought at
such designs with a flushed earnestness that disregarded season,
weather, time of day or night, food, rest. Under such a hurry of
the spirits, and such incessant occupation, the strongest
constitution will commonly go down. Hers, neither of the strongest
nor the weakest, yielded to the burden, and began to sink.
To have saved her life, then, by taking action on the warning that
shone in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been
impossible, without changing her nature. As long as the power of
moving about in the old way was left to her, she must exercise it,
or be killed by the restraint. And so the time came when she could
move about no longer, and took to her bed.
All the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of her
natural disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, she lay
upon her bed through the whole round of changes of the seasons. She
lay upon her bed through fifteen months. In all that time, her old
cheerfulness never quitted her. In all that time, not an impatient
or a querulous minute can be remembered.
At length, at midnight on the second of February, 1864, she turned
down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up.
The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny album
was soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as the clock was on
the stroke of one:
"Do you think I am dying, mamma?"
"I think you are very, very ill to-night, my dear!"
"Send for my sister. My feet are so cold. Lift me up?"
Her sister entering as they raised her, she said: "It has come at
last!" And with a bright and happy smile, looked upward, and
departed.
Well had she written:
Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death,
Who waits thee at the portals of the skies,
Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath,
Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?
Oh what were life, if life were all? Thine eyes
Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see
Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies,
And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee.
CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND
EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION TO "RELIGIOUS
OPINIONS" BY THE LATE REVEREND
CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND
Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend died in London, on the 25th of February
1868. His will contained the following passage:-
"I appoint my friend Charles Dickens, of Gad's Hill Place, in the
County of Kent, Esquire, my literary executor; and beg of him to
publish without alteration as much of my notes and reflections as
may make known my opinions on religious matters, they being such as
I verily believe would be conducive to the happiness of mankind."
In pursuance of the foregoing injunction, the Literary Executor so
appointed (not previously aware that the publication of any
Religious Opinions would be enjoined upon him), applied himself to
the examination of the numerous papers left by his deceased friend.
Some of these were in Lausanne, and some were in London.
Considerable delay occurred before they could be got together,
arising out of certain claims preferred, and formalities insisted on
by the authorities of the Canton de Vaud. When at length the whole
of his late friend's papers passed into the Literary Executor's
hands, it was found that Religious Opinions were scattered up and
down through a variety of memoranda and note-books, the gradual
accumulation of years and years. Many of the following pages were
carefully transcribed, numbered, connected, and prepared for the
press; but many more were dispersed fragments, originally written in
pencil, afterwards inked over, the intended sequence of which in the
writer's mind, it was extremely difficult to follow. These again
were intermixed with journals of travel, fragments of poems,
critical essays, voluminous correspondence, and old school-exercises
and college themes, having no kind of connection with them.
To publish such materials "without alteration", was simply
impossible. But finding everywhere internal evidence that Mr.
Townshend's Religious Opinions had been constantly meditated and
reconsidered with great pains and sincerity throughout his life, the
Literary Executor carefully compiled them (always in the writer's
exact words), and endeavoured in piecing them together to avoid
needless repetition. He does not doubt that Mr. Townshend held the
clue to a precise plan, which could have greatly simplified the
presentation of these views; and he has devoted the first section of
this volume to Mr. Townshend's own notes of his comprehensive
intentions. Proofs of the devout spirit in which they were
conceived, and of the sense of responsibility with which he worked
at them, abound through the whole mass of papers. Mr. Townshend's
varied attainments, delicate tastes, and amiable and gentle nature,
caused him to be beloved through life by the variously distinguished
men who were his compeers at Cambridge long ago. To his Literary
Executor he was always a warmly-attached and sympathetic friend. To
the public, he has been a most generous benefactor, both in his
munificent bequest of his collection of precious stones in the South
Kensington Museum, and in the devotion of the bulk of his property
to the education of poor children.
ON MR. FECHTER'S ACTING
The distinguished artist whose name is prefixed to these remarks
purposes to leave England for a professional tour in the United
States. A few words from me, in reference to his merits as an
actor, I hope may not be uninteresting to some readers, in advance
of his publicly proving them before an American audience, and I know
will not be unacceptable to my intimate friend. I state at once
that Mr. Fechter holds that relation towards me; not only because it
is the fact, but also because our friendship originated in my public
appreciation of him. I had studied his acting closely, and had
admired it highly, both in Paris and in London, years before we
exchanged a word. Consequently my appreciation is not the result of
personal regard, but personal regard has sprung out of my
appreciation.
The first quality observable in Mr. Fechter's acting is, that it is
in the highest degree romantic. However elaborated in minute
details, there is always a peculiar dash and vigour in it, like the
fresh atmosphere of the story whereof it is a part. When he is on
the stage, it seems to me as though the story were transpiring
before me for the first and last time. Thus there is a fervour in
his love-making--a suffusion of his whole being with the rapture of
his passion--that sheds a glory on its object, and raises her,
before the eyes of the audience, into the light in which he sees
her. It was this remarkable power that took Paris by storm when he
became famous in the lover's part in the Dame aux Camelias. It is a
short part, really comprised in two scenes, but, as he acted it (he
was its original representative), it left its poetic and exalting
influence on the heroine throughout the play. A woman who could be
so loved--who could be so devotedly and romantically adored--had a
hold upon the general sympathy with which nothing less absorbing and
complete could have invested her. When I first saw this play and
this actor, I could not in forming my lenient judgment of the
heroine, forget that she had been the inspiration of a passion of
which I had beheld such profound and affecting marks. I said to
myself, as a child might have said: "A bad woman could not have
been the object of that wonderful tenderness, could not have so
subdued that worshipping heart, could not have drawn such tears from
such a lover". I am persuaded that the same effect was wrought upon
the Parisian audiences, both consciously and unconsciously, to a
very great extent, and that what was morally disagreeable in the
Dame aux Camelias first got lost in this brilliant halo of romance.
I have seen the same play with the same part otherwise acted, and in
exact degree as the love became dull and earthy, the heroine
descended from her pedestal.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6