I carried my MSS. into Paternoster Row like anybody's book-keeper, and accused the world of no particular ingratitude that it could not read my name with my articles, and that it gave itself no concern to discover me. Yet there was a private pleasure in the congeniality of my labor, and in the consciousness that I could float upon my quill even in this vast London sea. Once or twice my articles went across the Channel and returned in foreign dress. I wonder if I shall ever again feel the thrill of that first recognition of my offspring coming to my knee with their strange French prattle.
I was not uniformly successful, but, if rejected, my MSS. were courteously returned, with a note from the editor. As a sample I give the following. The original is a lithographed fac-simile of the handwriting of Mr. Dickens, printed in blue ink, the date and the title of the manuscript being in another handwriting.
OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND."
A WEEKLY JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
No. 26 Wellington Street, Strand, London, W. C.
January 27, 1863.
Mr. Charles Dickens begs to thank the writer of the paper entitled "A Battle Sunday" for having done him the favor to offer it as a contribution to these pages. He much regrets, however, that it is not suited to the requirements of "All the Year Round."
The manuscript will be returned, under cover, if applied for as above.
The prices of miscellaneous articles in London are remunerative. Twenty-four shillings a magazine page is the common valuation: but specially interesting papers rate higher. Literature as a profession, in England, is more certain and more progressive than with us. It is not debased with the heavy leaven of journalism. Among the many serial publications of London, ability, tact, and industry should always find a liberal market. There is less of the vagrancy of letters,—Bohemianism, Mohicanism, or what not,—in London than in either New York or Paris.
I think we have the cleverer fugitive writers in America, but those of England seemed to me to have more self-respect and conscientiousness. The soul of the scribe need never be in pledge if there are many masters.
While a good writer in any department can find work across the water, I would advise no one to go abroad with this assurance solely. My success—if so that can be called which yielded me life, not profit—was circumstantial, and cannot be repeated. I should be loth to try it again upon purely literary merits.