which, however, had to be withdrawn, and its author wrote characteristically, “Believe me that I have no other feeling of disappointment . . . but that arising from the not having been able to be of use to you.” Macready remained a close friend as long as he lived, and Dickens does not seem to have suffered from the churlishness referred to in the Dictionary of National Biography.
In 1851 Macready appeared on the stage for the last time in public. Dickens wrote (27th Feb. 1851):—“No light portion of my life arose before me when the quiet vision to which I am beholden, in I don’t know how great a degree, or for how much—who does?—faded so nobly from my bodily eyes last night.”
There must have been a certain innocence in Macready or the following letter (May 24, 1851) would not have been appropriate: “Always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his being dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his hat being made of sticking plaster. . . . I would recommend you to see X at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eighteen-pence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is two pence per pint. . . . The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent’s Park and the price of admission is one shilling.”
Another artist who became a close friend of
Dickens was Stanfield, of whom we first hear as making one of a trip to Cornwall in 1842. His friendship with Cattermole, the painter, began in 1839 and suffered no diminution. His early letters to this correspondent are on the illustrations for the Old Curiosity Shop, where we find minute instruction about the drawing of Mrs Jarley’s Wax Work cart and other detailed points.
Dickens speaks of being nearly dead with grief at the loss of little Nell. He says he looks at Cattermole’s beautiful illustrations with a pleasure he cannot describe in words.
He seems, too, to have been in 1840 on familiar terms with Daniel Maclise. Only two letters to this friend exist, whom Miss Dickens describes as a “much-loved friend and most intimate companion” of her father.
In January 1842 Dickens started for America, and on 31st January he writes—“I can give you no conception of my welcome here. There never was a king or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds.”
Reference to Miss Martineau meets with showers of abuse. “She told us of some of our faults, and Americans can’t bear to be told of their faults.”
“In respect of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco-chewing and tobacco spittle, I have suffered considerably” (i., p. 67).