To C. C. FELTON, 1 SEPTEMBER 1843

MS Berg Collection. Address: By the Caledonia Mail Packet | Professor Felton | Cambridge | Massachusetts | United States.

Broadstairs, Kent. First September 1843.

My Dear Felton. If I thought it in the nature of things that you and I could ever agree on paper touching a certain Chuzzlewitian question whereupon Forster tells me you have remarks to make, I should immediately walk into the same tooth and nail. But as I don't—I won't. Contenting myself with this prediction—that one of these years and days, you will write or say to me "My dear Dickens you were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though you got most thoroughly hated for it." To which I shall reply, "My dear Felton, I looked a long way off and not immediately under my nose, ^aand I value their hatred, being haters, just as much as I prized their love, being lovers—a little more indeed, for Nature formed them to be very constant in their prejudices, and not at all constant in their affections."^a At which sentiment you will laugh, and I shall laugh; and then (for I foresee this will all happen in England) we shall call for another pot of porter, and two or three dozen of oysters.

Now don't you in your own heart and soul^b—in that secretest of Feltonian chambers—^bquarrel with me for this long silence? Not half so much as I quarrel with myself, I know; but if you could read half the letters I write to you pg 548in imagination, you would swear by me for the best of correspondents. The truth is, that when I have done my morning's work, down goes my Pen, and from that minute I feel it a positive impossibility to take it up again, until imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk. I walk about brimful of letters, facetious descriptions, touching morsels, and pathetic friendships, but can't for the soul of me uncork myself. The Post-Office is my rock ahead. My average number of letters that must be written every day, is, at the least, a dozen. And you could no more know what I was writing to you spiritually, from the perusal of the bodily thirteenth, than you could tell from my hat what was going on in my head, or could read my heart on the surface of my flannel waistcoat.

This is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff whereon—in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay—our house stands: the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. Seven miles out, are the Goodwin Sands (you've heard of the Goodwin Sands?) whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is a big lighthouse called the North Foreland on a hill behind the village—a severe parsonic light—which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. Under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications which the sea throws down again at high water. Old gentlemen and ancient ladies, flirt, after their own manner, in two reading rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. Other old gentlemen look all day through telescopes and never see anything. In a bay- window in a one pair, sits from nine o'Clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neck-cloth who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. His name is Boz. At one, he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen—a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise—splashing about in the ocean. After that, he may be seen in another bay window on the ground floor, eating a strong lunch—after that, walking a dozen miles or so—or lying on his back in the sand, reading a book. Nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is very comfortable indeed. He's as brown as a berry, and they do say, is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. But this is mere rumour. Sometimes he goes up to London (eighty miles or so, away) and then I'm told there is a sound in Lincolns Inn Fields at night, as of men laughing: together with a clinking of knives and forks and wine-glasses.

I never shall have been so near you since we parted aboard the George Washington, as next Tuesday. Forster, Maclise, and I—and perhaps Stanfield—are then going aboard the Cunard Steamer at Liverpool, to bid Macready good bye, and bring his wife away.¹ It will be a very hard parting. You will see and know him of course. We gave him a splendid dinner last Saturday at Richmond, whereat I presided with my accustomed grace. He is one of the noblest fellows in the world; and I would give a great deal that you and I should sit beside each other to see him play Virginius, Lear, or Werner—which I take to be, every one, pg 549the greatest piece of exquisite perfection that his lofty art is capable of attaining. His Macbeth, especially the last act, is a tremendous reality; but so indeed is almost everything he does.¹ You recollect perhaps that he was the guardian of our children while we were away. I love him dearly. ^cHe has no letters from me: not even to you.² Do not laugh, when I say that I have given him none, lest they should injure him; for I know how many head of vermin would eat into his heart if they could, that they might void their hatred even second-hand, upon a man I prized.³ But pray tell Sumner, Ticknor, and such friends as you know I esteem, with what commendation and affectionate regard, I mention him through you.⁴ If I could un-dedicate Nickleby, I would, until his return from America.^c

You asked me, long ago, about Maclise. He is such a wayward fellow in his subjects,⁵ that it would be next to impossible to write such an article as you were thinking of, about him. I wish you could form an idea of his Genius. One of these days, a book will come out—Moore's Irish Melodies⁶—entirely illustrated by him, on every page. When it comes, I'll send it to you. You will have some notion of him then. He is in great favor with the Queen, and paints secret pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on the morning of his birthday⁷pg 550—and the like. But if he has a care, he will leave his mark on more enduring things than Palace Walls.

And so Longfellow is married.¹ I remember her well; and could draw her portrait—in words—to the life. A very beautiful and gentle creature—and a proper love for a poet. My cordial remembrances and congratulations. Do they live in the house where we breakfasted?^{2 d}And does Longfellow find cold water as essential to matrimony as to a single life. I greatly desire to be enlightened on this head. Do ask him—in confidence. As to oysters—but I may be open to misconstruction, if I pursue that subject.^d

I very often dream I am in America again; but strange to say, I never dream of you. I am always endeavouring to get home in disguise, and have a dreary sense of the distance. Apropos of dreams, is it not a strange thing if writers of fiction never dream of their own creations : recollecting I suppose, even in their dreams, that they have no real existence ? I never dreamed of any of my own characters and I feel it so impossible, that I would wager Scott never did of his, real as they are. I had a good piece of absurdity in my head a night or two ago. I dreamed that somebody was dead. I don't know whom, but it's not to the purpose. It was a private gentleman and a particular friend; and I was greatly overcome when the news was broken to me (very delicately) by a gentleman in a cocked hat, top boots, and a sheet. Nothing else. "Good God", I said. "Is he dead!". "He is as dead Sir", rejoined the gentleman, "as a door-nail. But we must all die Mr. Dickens—sooner or later my dear Sir"—"Ah!" I said. "Yes. To be sure. Very true. But what did he die of?" The gentleman burst into a flood of tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion, "He christened his youngest child, Sir, with a toasting-fork." I never in my life was so affected as at his having fallen a victim to this complaint. It carried a conviction to my mind that he never could have recovered. I knew that it was the most interesting and fatal malady in the world; and I wrung the gentleman's hand in a convulsion of respectful admiration—for I felt that this explanation did equal honor to his head and his heart!

What do you think of Mrs. Gamp? And how do you like the undertaker? I have a fancy that they are in your way. Oh Heaven such green woods as I was rambling among, down in Yorkshire, when I was getting that done, last July!³ For days and weeks, we never saw the sky but through green boughs; and all day long, I cantered over such soft moss and turf that the horse's feet scarcely made a sound upon it. We have some friends in that part of the country (close to Castle Howard, where Lord Morpeth's father dwells in state—in his Park indeed) who are the jolliest of the jolly: keeping a big old country house, with an ale cellar pg 551something larger than a reasonable church, and everything like Goldsmith's bear dances, "in a concatenation accordingly". Just the place for you, Felton! We performed some madnesses there, in the way of forfeits, pic-nics, rustic games, inspections of ancient monasteries at midnight¹ when the moon was shining; that would have gone to your heart, and as Mr. Weller says, "come out on the other side."²

^eI was going to say a great deal about Mrs. Felton, and the good it would do her to bring her to England, but Kate is going to write to her by this Mail:³ which is much better. Our domestic news is slight but portentous. Coming events cast their shadows before. I have visions of a fifth child, sometimes.^e

Write soon My Dear Felton, and if I write to you less often than I would, believe that my affectionate heart is with you always. Loves and regards to all friends, from Yours ever and ever Charles Dickens

^fP.S. I heard from Hamlet⁴ by the last packet.⁵ He seems to be a prey to Gentle Melancholy. But he was a Good fellow, and I believe as honestly and disinterestedly attached to me, as a Man could be. I wish you could have seen his lady love. Quite a practical joke, she was.f