NARRATIVE.

Charles Dickens was at Broadstairs with his family for the autumn months.  During all this year he was busily engaged with the periodical entitled “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” in which the story of “The Old Curiosity Shop” subsequently appeared.  Nearly all these letters to Mr. George Cattermole refer to the illustrations for this story.

The one dated March 9th alludes to short papers written for “Master
Humphrey’s Clock” prior to the commencement of “The Old Curiosity Shop.”

We have in this year Charles Dickens’s first letter to Mr. Daniel Maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately, the only letters we have been able to obtain addressed to this much-loved friend and most intimate companion.

Mr. George Cattermole.

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
Monday, January 13th, 1840.
MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you.  My now periodical work appears ­or I should rather say the first number does ­on Saturday, the 28th of March; and as it has to be sent to America and Germany, and must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand; I having in fact begun it on Saturday last.  Instead of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible.  The plan is a new one ­I mean the plan of the fiction ­and it will comprehend a great variety of tales.  The title is:  “Master Humphrey’s Clock.”

Now, among other improvements, I have turned my attention to the illustrations, meaning to have woodcuts dropped into the text and no separate plates.  I want to know whether you would object to make me a little sketch for a woodcut ­in indian-ink would be quite sufficient ­about the size of the enclosed scrap; the subject, an old quaint room with antique Elizabethan furniture, and in the chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock ­the clock belonging to Master Humphrey, in fact, and no figures.  This I should drop into the text at the head of my opening page.

I want to know besides ­as Chapman and Hall are my partners in the matter, there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the question ­what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms?  I should tell you that I intend to ask Maclise to join me likewise, and that the copying the drawing on wood and the cutting will be done in first-rate style.  We are justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be enormous, and the popularity very great; and when I explain to you the notes I have in my head, I think you will see that it opens a vast number of very good subjects.

I want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your own time and place ­either here or at your house or at the Athenaeum, though this would be the best place, because I have my papers about me.  If you would take a chop with me, for instance, on Tuesday or Wednesday, I could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit I have endeavoured to make this as businesslike and stupid as need be.

Of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound secret, or there would be fifty Humphreys in the field.  So write me a line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your worthy lady.

Believe me always, my dear Cattermole,
Faithfully yours.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, Tuesday Afternoon.

MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I think the drawing most famous, and so do the publishers, to whom I sent it to-day.  If Browne should suggest anything for the future which may enable him to do you justice in copying (on which point he is very anxious), I will communicate it to you.  It has occurred to me that perhaps you will like to see his copy on the block before it is cut, and I have therefore told Chapman and Hall to forward it to you.

In future, I will take care that you have the number to choose your subject from.  I ought to have done so, perhaps, in this case; but I was very anxious that you should do the room.

Perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as enclosed, regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with the publishers, they will be happy to enter upon it when, where, and how you please.

Faithfully yours always.

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
Monday, March 9th, 1840.
MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I have been induced, on looking over the works of the “Clock,” to make a slight alteration in their disposal, by virtue of which the story about “John Podgers” will stand over for some little time, and that short tale will occupy its place which you have already by you, and which treats of the assassination of a young gentleman under circumstances of peculiar aggravation.  I shall be greatly obliged to you if you will turn your attention to this last morsel as the feature of N, and still more if you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one in it.  I would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which I feel very strongly, and into the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no part.

I should tell you perhaps, with reference to Chapman and Hall, that they will never trouble you (as they never trouble me) but when there is real and pressing occasion, and that their representations in this respect, unlike those of most men of business, are to be relied upon.

I cannot tell you how admirably I think Master Humphrey’s room comes out, or what glowing accounts I hear of the second design you have done.  I had not the faintest anticipation of anything so good ­taking into account the material and the despatch.

With best regards at home,
Believe me, dear Cattermole,
Heartily yours.

P.S. ­The new (N tale begins:  “I hold a lieutenant’s commission in his Majesty’s army, and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678.”  It has at present no title.

Mr. S. A. Diezman.

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT’S PARK,
LONDON, 10th March, 1840.

MY DEAR SIR,

I will not attempt to tell you how much gratified I have been by the receipt of your first English letter; nor can I describe to you with what delight and gratification I learn that I am held in such high esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is flattering indeed.

To you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, I fear, very irksome) task of clothing me in the German garb, I owe a long arrear of thanks.  I wish you would come to England, and afford me an opportunity of slightly reducing the account.

It is with great regret that I have to inform you, in reply to the request contained in your pleasant communication, that my publishers have already made such arrangements and are in possession of such stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that I have no power to send them out of England.  If I had, I need not tell you what pleasure it would afford me to promote your views.

I am too sensible of the trouble you must have already had with my writings to impose upon you now a long letter.  I will only add, therefore, that I am,

My dear Sir,
With great sincerity,
Faithfully yours.

Mr. Daniel Maclise.

BROADSTAIRS, June 2nd, 1840.

MY DEAR MACLISE,

My foot is in the house,
My bath is on the sea,
And, before I take a souse,
Here’s a single note to thee.

It merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary sublimity; that this place is, as the Guide Book most justly observes, “unsurpassed for the salubrity of the refreshing breezes, which are wafted on the ocean’s pinions from far-distant shores.”  That we are all right after the perils and voyages of yesterday.  That the sea is rolling away in front of the window at which I indite this epistle, and that everything is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a splendid coast can make it.  Bear these recommendations in mind, and shunning Talfourdian pledges, come to the bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair front, where no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs off, and then they keep open and won’t shut again.

COME!

I can no more.

Always faithfully yours.

Mr. George Cattermole.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, December 21st.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Kit, the single gentleman, and Mr. Garland go down to the place where the child is, and arrive there at night.  There has been a fall of snow.  Kit, leaving them behind, runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in one hand and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to make his presence known.  In a window ­supposed to be that of the child’s little room ­a light is burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of course, to her visitors, who are full of hope) lies dead.

If you have any difficulty about Kit, never mind about putting him in.

The two others to-morrow.

Faithfully always.

DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, Friday Morning.

MY DEAR CATTERMOLE,

I sent the MS. of the enclosed proof, marked 2, up to Chapman and Hall, from Devonshire, mentioning a subject of an old gateway, which I had put in expressly with a view to your illustrious pencil.  By a mistake, however, it went to Browne instead.  Chapman is out of town, and such things have gone wrong in consequence.

The subject to which I wish to call your attention is in an unwritten number to follow this one, but it is a mere echo of what you will find at the conclusion of this proof marked 2.  I want the cart, gaily decorated, going through the street of the old town with the wax brigand displayed to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also dispersing bills.  As many flags and inscriptions about Jarley’s Wax Work fluttering from the cart as you please.  You know the wax brigands, and how they contemplate small oval miniatures?  That’s the figure I want.  I send you the scrap of MS. which contains the subject.

Will you, when you have done this, send it with all speed to Chapman and Hall, as we are mortally pressed for time, and I must go hard to work to make up for what I have lost by being dutiful and going to see my father.

I want to see you about a frontispiece to our first “Clock” volume, which will come out (I think) at the end of September, and about other matters.  When shall we meet and where?

I say nothing about our cousin or the baby, for Kate bears this, and will make me a full report and convey all loves and congratulations.

Could you dine with us on Sunday, at six o’clock sharp?  I’d come and fetch you in the morning, and we could take a ride and walk.  We shall be quite alone, unless Macready comes.  What say you?

Don’t forget despatch, there’s a dear fellow, and ever believe me,

Heartily yours.

December 22nd, 1840.

DEAR GEORGE,

The child lying dead in the little sleeping-room, which is behind the open screen.  It is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her breast and pillow, and about her bed, there may be strips of holly and berries, and such free green things.  Window overgrown with ivy.  The little boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by the bedside, if you like it so; but I think it will be quieter and more peaceful if she is quite alone.  I want it to express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death can.

2.

The child has been buried inside the church, and the old man, who cannot be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave and sits there all day long, waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey.  His staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie beside him.  “She’ll come to-morrow,” he says when it gets dark, and goes sorrowfully home.  I think an hourglass running out would help the notion; perhaps her little things upon his knee, or in his hand.

I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.

Love to Missis.

Ever and always heartily.