Concerning "Nickleby," I am so much of your mind (comparing it with "Copperfield "), that it was a long time before I could take a pleasure in reading it. But I got better, as I found the audience always taking to it. I have been trying, alone by myself, the "Oliver Twist" murder, but have got something so horrible out of it that I am afraid to try it in public. Ever faithfully yours. CCCCLXXV. M. DE CERJAT GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, Kent, Thursday, May 28, 1863. MY DEAR CERJAT, I don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile your mind to a French Hamlet; but I assure you that Fechter's is a very remarkable performance perfectly consistent with itself (whether it be my particular Hamlet, or your particular Hamlet, or no), a coherent and intelligent whole, and done by a true artist. I have never seen, I think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character so well sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating air of romance and picturesqueness added, which is quite new. Rely upon it, the public were right. The thing could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have perished upon that, very soon. As to the mere accent, there is far less drawback in that than you would suppose. For this reason, he obviously knows English so thoroughly that you feel he is safe. You are never in pain for him. This sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think very little more about it. The Colenso and Jowett matter is a more difficult question, but here again I don't go with you. The position of the writers of "Essays and Reviews" is, that certain parts of the Old Testament have done their intended function in the education of the world as it was; but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the Almighty to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the machinery of its education must advance too. For example: inasmuch as ever since there was a sun and there was vapour, there must have been a rainbow under certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to recognise that indisputable fact. Similarly, Joshua might command the sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth; but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and the sun, whatever his impressions were. Again, it is contended that the science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man as books of an immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former. As I understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it is, that the Church should not gradually shock and lose the more thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds of thousands. This seems to me, as I understand the temper and tendency of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary position. And as I understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue nothing. What these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in assuming it to be finished and done with, I can't in the least understand. Nothing is discovered without God's intention and assistance, and I suppose every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. Lastly, in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men (Protestants protestors successors of the men who protested against human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all settled by the direct act of Heaven; not as if they had been, as we know they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among disputing mortals as fallible as you or I. Coming nearer home, I hope that Georgina is almost quite well. She has no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely better. Mary is neither married nor (that I know of) going to be. She and Katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. My sailor boy's ship, the Orlando, is fortunately in Chatham Dockyard - so he is pretty constantly at home while the shipwrights are repairing a leak in her. I am reading in London every Friday just now. Great crams and great enthusiasm. Townshend I suppose to have left Lausanne somewhere about this day. His house in the park is hermetically sealed, ready for him. The Prince and Princess of Wales go about (wisely) very much, and have as fair a chance of popularity as ever prince and princess had. The City ball in their honour is to be a tremendously gorgeous business, and Mary is highly excited by her father's being invited, and she with him. Meantime the unworthy parent is devising all kinds of subterfuges for sending her and getting out of it himself. A very intelligent German friend of mine, just home from America, maintains that the conscription will succeed in the North, and that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. I say "No," and that however mad and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers, We shall see. The more they brag the more I don't believe in them. CCCCLXXVI. A JEWISH LADY Friday, July 10, 1863. as DEAR MADAM, 66 I hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter. It is often impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace with my correspondence. I must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent Jewish people, that I have done them what you describe 'a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less just, and a far less good-tempered people than I have always supposed them to be. Fagin, in "Oliver Twist," is a Jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to which that story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew. But surely no sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe — firstly, that all the rest of the wicked dramatis persone are Christians; and secondly, that he is called the "Jew," not because of his religion, but because of his race. If I were to write a story, in which I described a Frenchman or a Spaniard as "the Roman Catholic," I should do a very indecent and unjustifiable thing; but I make mention of Fagin as the Jew, because he is one of the Jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of him which I should give my readers of a Chinaman, by calling him a Chinese. The inclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good object in which you are interested; but I hope it may serve to show you that I have no feeling towards the Jewish people but a friendly one. I always speak well of them, whether in public or in private, and bear my testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions as I have ever had with them; and in my "Child's History of England," I have lost no opportunity of setting forth their cruel persecution in old times. Dear madam, faithfully yours. CCCCLXXVII. MISS HOGARTH GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, MY DEAREST Georgy, You will see by to-day's "Times" that it was an earthquake that shook me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the. man's who writes from Blackheath so near us twenty minutes past three. It is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; I wish you would inquire whether the servants felt it. I thought it was the voice of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. I am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in iron-at all events in our part of the country to the shock, as though there were something magnetic in it. For, whereas my long iron bedstead was so violently shaken, I certainly heard nothing rattle in the room. I will write about my return as soon as I get on with the still unbegun "Uncommercial.” Ever affectionately. GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, MY DEAR CHORLEY, This is a "Social Science" note, touching prospective engagements. If you are obliged, as you were last year, to go away between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, then we rely upon your coming back to see the old year out. Furthermore, I rely upon you for this: Lady Molesworth says she will come down for a day or two, and I have told her that I shall ask you to be her escort, and to arrange a time. Will you take counsel with her, and arrange accordingly? After our family visitors are gone, Mary is going a hunting in Hampshire; but if you and Lady Molesworth could make out from Saturday, the 9th of January, VOL. II. as your day of coming together, or for any day between that and Saturday, the 16th, it would be beforehand with her going and would suit me excellently. There is a new officer at the dockyard, vice Captain (now an admiral), and I will take that opportunity of paying him and his wife the attention of asking them to dine in these gorgeous halls. For all of which reasons, if the Social Science Congress of two could meet and arrive at a conclusion, the conclusion would be thankfully booked by the illustrious writer of these lines. On Christmas Eve there is a train from your own Victoria Station at 4.35 P. M., which will bring you to Strood (Rochester Bridge Station) in an hour, and there a majestic form will be descried in a Basket. Yours affectionately. CCCCLXXIX. W. H. WILLS MY DEAR WILLS, GAD'S HILL, Sunday, December 20, 1863. -I am clear that you took my cold. Why didn't you do the thing completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still. Will you tell Mrs. Linton that in looking over her admirable account (most admirable) of Mrs. Gordon's book, I have taken out the references to Lockhart, not because I in the least doubt their justice, but because I knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in Rome, I walked about with him for some hours when he was dying fast, and all the old faults had faded out of him, and the now ghost of the handsome man I had first known when Scott's daughter was at the head of his house had little more to do with this world than she in her grave, or Scott in his, or small Hull Littlejohn in his. Lockhart had been anxious to see me all the previous day (when I was away on the Campagna), and as we walked about I knew very well that he knew very well why. He talked of getting better, but I never saw him again. This makes me stay Mrs. Linton's hand, gentle as it is. Mrs. Lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. God bless her. I am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to increase your stock of such ghosts pretty liberally. Ever faithfully. |