ORIGINAL LETTER

FROM

CHARLES DICKENS.

[For the truly characteristic letter here published, and for the sketch which accompanies it, we are indebted to the obliging attention of Mr. John Tomlin of Tennessee.—With our own warm admiration of the writings and character of Dickens we can well understand and easily pardon the enthusiasm of our friend.]

In setting about that most difficult of all tasks, the sketching of the character of a living author, I feel that I cannot entirely keep clear of that weakness of the human mind, which praises the foibles of a friend and condemns the virtues of an enemy. There is no task more difficult of performance than the one I have imposed upon myself—no task but what can be more easily performed correctly, than the presentation to the world, in their nice distinctive shades, of living characters. To admire one is to praise him—and to cover all of his faults in the blindness of charity, is the weakness of our nature. It is scarcely possible then, Mr. Poe, for one like me, whose love is as strong as the faith of the martyr, when at the stake he expires, and whose hate is as deep as the depths of the sea, to shun the errors that almost every one has fallen into, who undertakes the task of sketching characters, life-like, of eminent living individuals.—To succeed partially is in my power, and in the power of almost every one, but to succeed wholly in introducing to the mind’s eye the character as it really is, of any individual, is scarcely possible. I will not say that I am peculiarly fitted to shine in this province, nor will I say that I am equal to the task that I have voluntarily imposed upon myself—but I will say that everything I say will be said from a conviction of belief.

Nay, do not start and turn pale, gentle reader, when I tell you that “Boz,” the inimitable “Boz,” is the subject of the present sketch. It is indeed true that Charles Dickens, the great English author—he who lives in London amid the exciting scenes and struggles of this world’s great Metropolis, is now about to be “talked off,” by a backwoodsman—but he will do it with an admiring reverence, and a most partial discretion. I will not speak of his published works, for they have been numbered among our household gods,—nor of the genius of the mind that has made them such. So long as there is mind to appreciate the high conceptions of mind, and a taste to admire the purity of thought, so long will Charles Dickens live “the noblest work of God.”

Charles Dickens as an author is too well known for me to say aught for or against him. It is only in his private capacity will I speak—only as Charles Dickens, the private man. Those social qualities of the nature so requisite in the making up of a good man, belong to him essentially and justly. He could not be Charles Dickens and have not those qualities of the soul which but few possess. Had all of us the true nobility of nature, all of us would be like him in spirit. There is in him a gentleness that commands our love as much as his genius has our admiration. The kindness of his nature is as great as his talent is pre-eminent. He could never be otherwise than “Boz” nor less than Charles Dickens—the being of all kindly feeling.

Dwelling in a little hamlet that is scarcely known beyond the sound of its church bell—and in a place that a few years ago, resounded only to the winds of the magic woods, or the moccasin tread of the Indian on the dry leaves,—I, a creature less known by far than my village, addressed a letter to “Boz,” and, in answer from him, received the following letter:

“1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate.

Regent’s Park, London.

Tuesday, Twenty-third February, 1841.

Dear Sir:—You are quite right in feeling assured that I should answer the letter you have addressed to me. If you had entertained a presentiment that it would afford me sincere pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted and admiring reader of my books in the back-woods of America, you would not have been far wrong.

I thank you cordially and heartily, both for your letter, and its kind and courteous terms. To think that I have awakened a fellow-feeling and sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours among the vast solitudes in which you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and pride to me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate remembrance and approval, sounding from the great forests on the banks of the Mississippi, sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than all the honorary distinctions that all the courts in Europe could confer.

It is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in vain, and that are the highest reward of an author’s life. To be numbered among the household gods of one’s distant countrymen and associated with their homes and quiet pleasures—to be told that in each nook and corner of the world’s great mass there lives one well-wisher who holds communion with one in the spirit—is a worthy fame indeed, and one which I would not barter for a mine of wealth.

That I may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours for a very long time to come, and to hold a place in your pleasant thoughts is the earnest wish of Boz.—And with all good wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation of all your kindly feeling, I am, Dear Sir,

Faithfully Yours,

Charles Dickens.

Mr. John Tomlin.”

Can anything be more unique—or more sweetly beautiful than this letter? In it there is the poetry of feeling warmed into life by his sympathies with the “creatures of many thoughtful hours.” The brain has never yet loosened from her alembic fountain, and dropped upon an author’s page, thoughts more gem-like than those that we see sparkling like diamonds in his letter. Time in her ravages on the thoughts of the departed never harvested more sparkling things than what appears here from the granary of “Boz’s” original mind. Throughout there is a tenderness breathing its seer-like influence on every thought, until it seems to become hallowed like the spirit-dream of a lover’s hope.

The great difference between mankind is, that there is a feeling of kindness in the heart of some that is not possessed by others. To live in this world without conferring on others, benefits, is to live without a purpose. Of what value to our fellow creatures is mind, no matter how splendidly adorned, if it bestows no favors on them? The rich gems that lie buried in the caves of the oceans, are not in their secret caves intrinsically less valuable, but their value is really not known until they yield a profit.—Napoleon in his granite mind impressed no stamp of heaven on his countrymen. Hard as the winter of his Russian Service lived his life on the memory of man! Frozen tears as thickly as hail-drops from a thunder-shower fell from the eyes of his army to blight and wither the affections of civilized Europe. In his life he toiled for a name which he won at the sacrifice of the lives of millions, and perished a prisoner on a bleak and rocky isle of the ocean!—The splendid intellect of Byron, more dazzling than the sunbeam from a summer sky, by one untoward circumstance came to prey upon every good feeling of his heart—and what was he?—a misanthrope!—That ill-fated and persecuted star, P. B. Shelley, what could he not have been, had the genius of his high-toned feelings been directed aright?

With all of the genius of these three beings Charles Dickens has a good heart, with all of the philanthropy and patriotism of a Washington. How few indeed are the great men that have lived in any age or in any country whose social qualities of the heart have not been materially injured, and in many instances totally destroyed, by eccentric peculiarities. Sometimes these peculiarities are real, but mostly have they been assumed. To be as nature made us is hardly possible now with any being who has the least prospect of a brilliant career in the world of letters. When nature bestows her high endowments on the mind, the favored one immediately aspires to oddity, and often to insanity,—and makes a non-descript of his genius. To have the world’s affability, and those social qualities of the heart that give so much of happiness and pleasure to our fellow creatures, is not considered by a man of genius as a thing at all worthy of possession, or as gifts adding one lustre to the character. Instead of being as they are, forming epochs in time and being bright exemplars in the annals of chroniclers, which nature intended them to do, they by the most odd monstrosities endeavor to mar the genial warmth of the feeling by misanthropic actions, and destroy from their very foundation the most kindly emotions.

To see one of our fellow creatures on whom nature has with an unsparing hand bestowed her best gifts, doing deeds unworthy the high standing of his parentage, and disgracing the purity of his privileges, is to the noble in spirit the source of its most feverish excitement. With the best of minds, organized artistically, Byron fell into habits so monstrously bad, that among the virtuous his name became a term used in denoting disgrace. No excuse can be offered for the man who has disgraced his name—no charity is so blind as not to see the stain.

In the world’s history, as far back as the memory reaches into the past, we have seen the most brilliant minds, associated in connection with some of the worst qualities of the heart. There is occasionally some solitary instance, standing as some beautiful relief on the epoch of time, of beings whose splendid endowments of mind have not been more remarkable in their era of history for talent, than the generous breathings of the holy purity of heart have been for kindness. Such cases as these are few, and happen but seldom. In “Boz” these two qualities have met.