THE MYSTERY OF CHARLES DICKENS
Perhaps no public man in the English-speaking world, in the lastcentury, was so widely and intimately known as Charles Dickens. Fromhis eighteenth year, when he won his first success in journalism, downthrough his series of brilliant triumphs in fiction, he was more andmore a conspicuous figure, living in the blaze of an intense publicity.He met every one and knew every one, and was the companion of everykind of man and woman. He loved to frequent the "caves of harmony"which Thackeray has immortalized, and he was a member of all the bestBohemian clubs of London. Actors, authors, good fellows generally, werehis intimate friends, and his acquaintance extended far beyond into thehomes of merchants and lawyers and the mansions of the proudest nobles.Indeed, he seemed to be almost a universal friend.
One remembers, for instance, how he was called in to arbitrate betweenThackeray and George Augustus Sala, who had quarreled. One remembershow Lord Byron's daughter, Lady Lovelace, when upon her sick-bed, usedto send for Dickens because there was something in his genial,sympathetic manner that soothed her. Crushing pieces of ice between herteeth in agony, she would speak to him and he would answer her in hisrich, manly tones until she was comforted and felt able to endure morehours of pain without complaint.
Dickens was a jovial soul. His books fairly steam with Christmas cheerand hot punch and the savor of plum puddings, very much as do hisletters to his intimate friends. Everybody knew Dickens. He could notdine in public without attracting attention. When he left thedining-room, his admirers would descend upon his table and carry offegg-shells, orange-peels, and other things that remained behind, sothat they might have memorials of this much-loved writer. Those whoknew him only by sight would often stop him in the streets and ask theprivilege of shaking hands with him; so different was he from--let ussay--Tennyson, who was as great an Englishman in his way as Dickens,but who kept himself aloof and saw few strangers.
It is hard to associate anything like mystery with Dickens, though hewas fond of mystery as an intellectual diversion, and his lastunfinished novel was The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Moreover, no oneadmired more than he those complex plots which Wilkie Collins used toweave under the influence of laudanum. But as for his own life, itseemed so normal, so free from anything approaching mystery, that wecan scarcely believe it to have been tinged with darker colors thanthose which appeared upon the surface.
A part of this mystery is plain enough. The other part is stillobscure--or of such a character that one does not care to bring itwholly to the light. It had to do with his various relations with women.
The world at large thinks that it knows this chapter in the life ofDickens, and that it refers wholly to his unfortunate disagreement withhis wife. To be sure, this is a chapter that is writ large in all ofhis biographies, and yet it is nowhere correctly told. His chosenbiographer was John Forster, whose Life of Charles Dickens, in threevolumes, must remain a standard work; but even Forster--we may assumethrough tact--has not set down all that he could, although he gives aclue.
As is well known, Dickens married Miss Catherine Hogarth when he wasonly twenty-four. He had just published his Sketches by Boz, thecopyright of which he sold for one hundred pounds, and was beginningthe Pickwick Papers. About this time his publisher brought N. P. Willisdown to Furnival's Inn to see the man whom Willis called "a youngparagraphist for the Morning Chronicle." Willis thus sketches Dickensand his surroundings:
In the most crowded part of Holborn, within a door or two of the Bulland Mouth Inn, we pulled up at the entrance of a large building usedfor lawyers' chambers. I followed by a long flight of stairs to anupper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room,with a deal table, two or three chairs and a few books, a small boy andMr. Dickens for the contents.
I was only struck at first with one thing--and I made a memorandum ofit that evening as the strongest instance I had seen of Englishobsequiousness to employers--the degree to which the poor author wasoverpowered with the honor of his publisher's visit! I remember sayingto myself, as I sat down on a rickety chair:
"My good fellow, if you were in America with that fine face and yourready quill, you would have no need to be condescended to by apublisher."
Dickens was dressed very much as he has since described Dick Swiveller,minus the swell look. His hair was cropped close to his head, hisclothes scant, though jauntily cut, and, after changing a raggedoffice-coat for a shabby blue, he stood by the door, collarless andbuttoned up, the very personification of a close sailer to the wind.
Before this interview with Willis, which Dickens always repudiated, hehad become something of a celebrity among the newspaper men with whomhe worked as a stenographer. As every one knows, he had had a hard timein his early years, working in a blacking-shop, and feeling too keenlythe ignominious position of which a less sensitive boy would probablyhave thought nothing. Then he became a shorthand reporter, and was busyat his work, so that he had little time for amusements.
It has been generally supposed that no love-affair entered his lifeuntil he met Catherine Hogarth, whom he married soon after making heracquaintance. People who are eager at ferreting out unimportant factsabout important men had unanimously come to the conclusion that up tothe age of twenty Dickens was entirely fancy-free. It was left to anAmerican to disclose the fact that this was not the case, but that evenin his teens he had been captivated by a girl of about his own age.
Inasmuch as the only reproach that was ever made against Dickens wasbased upon his love-affairs, let us go back and trace them from thisearly one to the very last, which must yet for some years, at least,remain a mystery.
Everything that is known about his first affair is contained in a bookvery beautifully printed, but inaccessible to most readers. Some yearsago Mr. William K. Bixby, of St. Louis, found in London a collector ofcurios. This man had in his stock a number of letters which had passedbetween a Miss Maria Beadnell and Charles Dickens when the two wereabout nineteen and a second package of letters representing a lateracquaintance, about 1855, at which time Miss Beadnell had been marriedfor a long time to a Mr. Henry Louis Winter, of 12 Artillery Place,London.
The copyright laws of Great Britain would not allow Mr. Bixby topublish the letters in that country, and he did not care to give themto the public here. Therefore, he presented them to the BibliophileSociety, with the understanding that four hundred and ninety-threecopies, with the Bibliophile book-plate, were to be printed anddistributed among the members of the society. A few additional copieswere struck off, but these did not bear the Bibliophile book-plate.Only two copies are available for other readers, and to peruse these itis necessary to visit the Congressional Library in Washington, wherethey were placed on July 24, 1908.
These letters form two series--the first written to Miss Beadnell in orabout 1829, and the second written to Mrs. Winter, formerly MissBeadnell, in 1855.
The book also contains an introduction by Henry H. Harper, who setsforth some theories which the facts, in my opinion, do not support; andthere are a number of interesting portraits, especially one of MissBeadnell in 1829--a lovely girl with dark curls. Another shows her in1855, when she writes of herself as "old and fat"--thereby doingherself a great deal of injustice; for although she had lost heryouthful beauty, she was a very presentable woman of middle age, butone who would not be particularly noticed in any company.
Summing up briefly these different letters, it may be said that in thefirst set Dickens wrote to the lady ardently, but by no meanspassionately. From what he says it is plain enough that she did notrespond to his feeling, and that presently she left London and went toParis, for her family was well-to-do, while Dickens was living fromhand to mouth.
In the second set of letters, written long afterward, Mrs. Winter seemsto have "set her cap" at the now famous author; but at that time he wascourted by every one, and had long ago forgotten the lady who had soeasily dismissed him in his younger days. In 1855, Mrs. Winter seems tohave reproached him for not having been more const
ant in the past; buthe replied:
You answered me coldly and reproachfully, and so I went my way.
Mr. Harper, in his introduction, tries very hard to prove that inwriting David Copperfield Dickens drew the character of Dora from MissBeadnell. It is a dangerous thing to say from whom any character in anovel is drawn. An author takes whatever suits his purpose incircumstance and fancy, and blends them all into one consistent whole,which is not to be identified with any individual. There is littlereason to think that the most intimate friends of Dickens and of hisfamily were mistaken through all the years when they were certain thatthe boy husband and the girl wife of David Copperfield were suggestedby any one save Dickens himself and Catherine Hogarth.
Why should he have gone back to a mere passing fancy, to a girl who didnot care for him, and who had no influence on his life, instead ofpicturing, as David's first wife, one whom he deeply loved, whom hemarried, who was the mother of his children, and who made a great partof his career, even that part which was inwardly half tragic and whollymournful?
Miss Beadnell may have been the original of Flora in Little Dorrit,though even this is doubtful. The character was at the time ascribed toa Miss Anna Maria Leigh, whom Dickens sometimes flirted with andsometimes caricatured.
When Dickens came to know George Hogarth, who was one of his colleagueson the staff of the Morning Chronicle, he met Hogarth'sdaughters--Catherine, Georgina, and Mary--and at once fell ardently inlove with Catherine, the eldest and prettiest of the three. He himselfwas almost girlish, with his fair complexion and light, wavy hair, sothat the famous sketch by Maclise has a remarkable charm; yet nobodycould really say with truth that any one of the three girls wasbeautiful. Georgina Hogarth, however, was sweet-tempered and of amotherly disposition. It may be that in a fashion she loved Dickens allher life, as she remained with him after he parted from her sister,taking the utmost care of his children, and looking out with unselfishfidelity for his many needs.
It was Mary, however, the youngest of the Hogarths, who lived with theDickenses during the first twelvemonth of their married life. ToDickens she was like a favorite sister, and when she died verysuddenly, in her eighteenth year, her loss was a great shock to him.
It was believed for a long time--in fact, until their separation--thatDickens and his wife were extremely happy in their home life. Hiswritings glorified all that was domestic, and paid many tender tributesto the joys of family affection. When the separation came the wholeworld was shocked. And yet rather early in Dickens's married life therewas more or less infelicity. In his Retrospections of an Active Life,Mr. John Bigelow writes a few sentences which are interesting for theirfrankness, and which give us certain hints:
Mrs. Dickens was not a handsome woman, though stout, hearty, andmatronly; there was something a little doubtful about her eye, and Ithought her endowed with a temper that might be very violent whenroused, though not easily rousable. Mrs. Caulfield told me that a MissTeman--I think that is the name--was the source of the difficultybetween Mrs. Dickens and her husband. She played in private theatricalswith Dickens, and he sent her a portrait in a brooch, which met with anaccident requiring it to be sent to the jeweler's to be mended. Thejeweler, noticing Mr. Dickens's initials, sent it to his house. Mrs.Dickens's sister, who had always been in love with him and was jealousof Miss Teman, told Mrs. Dickens of the brooch, and she mounted herhusband with comb and brush. This, no doubt, was Mrs. Dickens'sversion, in the main.
A few evenings later I saw Miss Teman at the Haymarket Theatre, playingwith Buckstone and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews. She seemed rather asmall cause for such a serious result--passably pretty, and not much ofan actress.
Here in one passage we have an intimation that Mrs. Dickens had atemper that was easily roused, that Dickens himself was interested inan actress, and that Miss Hogarth "had always been in love with him,and was jealous of Miss Teman."
Some years before this time, however, there had been growing in themind of Dickens a certain formless discontent--something to which hecould not give a name, yet which, cast over him the shadow ofdisappointment. He expressed the same feeling in David Copperfield,when he spoke of David's life with Dora. It seemed to come from thefact that he had grown to be a man, while his wife had still remained achild.
A passage or two may be quoted from the novel, so that we may set thembeside passages in Dickens's own life, which we know to have referredto his own wife, and not to any such nebulous person as Mrs. Winter.
The shadow I have mentioned that was not to be between us any more, butwas to rest wholly on my heart--how did that fall? The old unhappyfeeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were changed at all;but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain ofsorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly; butthe happiness I had vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness Ienjoyed, AND THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING WANTING.
What I missed I still regarded as something that had been a dream of myyouthful fancy; that was incapable of realization; that I was nowdiscovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But thatit would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more,and shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner, and that thismight have been I knew.
What I am describing slumbered and half awoke and slept again in theinnermost recesses of my mind. There was no evidence of it to me; Iknew of no influence it had in anything I said or did. I bore theweight of all our little cares and all my projects.
"There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind andpurpose." These words I remembered. I had endeavored to adapt Dora tomyself, and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myselfto Dora; to share with her what I could, and be happy; to bear on myown shoulders what I must, and be still happy.
Thus wrote Dickens in his fictitious character, and of his fictitiouswife. Let us see how he wrote and how he acted in his own person, andof his real wife.
As early as 1856, he showed a curious and restless activity, as of onewho was trying to rid himself of unpleasant thoughts. Mr. Forster saysthat he began to feel a strain upon his invention, a certaindisquietude, and a necessity for jotting down memoranda in note-books,so as to assist his memory and his imagination. He began to long forsolitude. He would take long, aimless rambles into the country,returning at no particular time or season. He once wrote to Forster:
I have had dreadful thoughts of getting away somewhere altogether bymyself. If I could have managed it, I think I might have gone to thePyrenees for six months. I have visions of living for half a year or soin all sorts of inaccessible places, and of opening a new book therein.A floating idea of going up above the snow-line, and living in someastonishing convent, hovers over me.
What do these cryptic utterances mean? At first, both in his novel andin his letters, they are obscure; but before long, in each, they becomevery definite. In 1856, we find these sentences among his letters:
The old days--the old days! Shall I ever, I wonder, get the frame ofmind back as it used to be then? Something of it, perhaps, but neverquite as it used to be.
I find that the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty bigone.
His next letter draws the veil and shows plainly what he means:
Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and there is no helpfor it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that Imake her so, too--and much more so. We are strangely ill-assorted forthe bond that exists between us.
Then he goes on to say that she would have been a thousand timeshappier if she had been married to another man. He speaks of"incompatibility," and a "difference of temperaments." In fact, it isthe same old story with which we have become so familiar, and which isboth as old as the hills and as new as this morning's newspaper.
Naturally, also, things grow worse, rather than better. Dickens comesto speak half jocularly of "the plunge," and calculates as to whateffect it will have on his public readings. He kept back theannouncement of
"the plunge" until after he had given several readings;then, on April 29, 1858, Mrs. Dickens left his home. His eldest sonwent to live with the mother, but the rest of the children remainedwith their father, while his daughter Mary nominally presided over thehouse. In the background, however, Georgina Hogarth, who seemed allthrough her life to have cared for Dickens more than for her sister,remained as a sort of guide and guardian for his children.
This arrangement was a private matter, and should not have been broughtto public attention; but it was impossible to suppress all gossip aboutso prominent a man. Much of the gossip was exaggerated; and when itcame to the notice of Dickens it stung him so severely as to lead himinto issuing a public justification of his course. He published astatement in Household Words, which led to many other letters in otherperiodicals, and finally a long one from him, which was printed in theNew York Tribune, addressed to his friend Mr. Arthur Smith.
Dickens afterward declared that he had written this letter as astrictly personal and private one, in order to correct false rumors andscandals. Mr. Smith naturally thought that the statement was intendedfor publication, but Dickens always spoke of it as "the violatedletter."
By his allusions to a difference of temperament and to incompatibility,Dickens no doubt meant that his wife had ceased to be to him the samecompanion that she had been in days gone by. As in so many cases, shehad not changed, while he had. He had grown out of the sphere in whichhe had been born, "associated with blacking-boys and quilt-printers,"and had become one of the great men of his time, whose genius wasuniversally admired.
Mr. Bigelow saw Mrs. Dickens as she really was--a commonplace womanendowed with the temper of a vixen, and disposed to outbursts of actualviolence when her jealousy was roused.
It was impossible that the two could have remained together, when inintellect and sympathy they were so far apart. There is nothing strangeabout their separation, except the exceedingly bad taste with whichDickens made it a public affair. It is safe to assume that he felt theneed of a different mate; and that he found one is evident enough fromthe hints and bits of innuendo that are found in the writings of hiscontemporaries.
He became a pleasure-lover; but more than that, he needed one who couldunderstand his moods and match them, one who could please his tastes,and one who could give him that admiration which he felt to be his due;for he was always anxious to be praised, and his letters are full ofanecdotes relating to his love of praise.
One does not wish to follow out these clues too closely. It is certainthat neither Miss Beadnell as a girl nor Mrs. Winter as a matron madeany serious appeal to him. The actresses who have been often mentionedin connection with his name were, for the most part, mere passingfavorites. The woman who in life was Dora made him feel the sameincompleteness that he has described in his best-known book. Thecompanion to whom he clung in his later years was neither alight-minded creature like Miss Beadnell, nor an undeveloped,high-tempered woman like the one he married, nor a mere domestic,friendly creature like Georgina Hogarth.
Ought we to venture upon a quest which shall solve this mystery in thelife of Charles Dickens! In his last will and testament, drawn up andsigned by him about a year before his death, the first paragraph readsas follows:
I, Charles Dickens, of Gadshill Place, Higham, in the county of Kent,hereby revoke all my former wills and codicils and declare this to bemy last will and testament. I give the sum of one thousand pounds, freeof legacy duty, to Miss Ellen Lawless Ternan, late of Houghton Place,Ampthill Square, in the county of Middlesex.
In connection with this, read Mr. John Bigelow's careless jottings madesome fifteen years before. Remember the Miss "Teman," about whose namehe was not quite certain; the Hogarth sisters' dislike of her; and themysterious figure in the background of the novelist's later life. Thenconsider the first bequest in his will, which leaves a substantial sumto one who was neither a relative nor a subordinate, but--may weassume--more than an ordinary friend?