Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885

by Various

There can be but little doubt that the children who came to those parties, and who have lived to grow up to be men and women, remember them as something bright and sunny in their young lives, and must always retain a loving feeling for their kind and genial host.

In those early days when he was living in Devonshire Terrace, his children were quite babies. And when he paid his first visit to America—accompanied by Mrs. Dickens—they were left under the care of some relations and friends. Anyone reading “The Letters of Charles Dickens” must be touched by his frequent allusions to these children, and by the love and tenderness expressed in his longings to see them again.

I can recall but very little of those days. I can remember our being obliged to spend much of the time at the house of a dear and good friend, but where the children of the house were very severely and sternly brought up. And I can remember how my little sister used to cry whenever she had to go there. I have also a vague remembrance of the return of the travellers, and of being lifted up to a gate and kissing my father through the bars. I do not know how the gate came to be shut, but imagine that he, in his impatience and eagerness to see us again, must have jumped out of the carriage before there was time for the gate to be opened.

I cannot at all recall his appearance at this time, but know from old portraits that his face was beautiful. I think he was fond of dress, and must have been rather a dandy in his way. Carrying my memory further on, I can remember him as very handsome. He had a most beautiful mouth, sensitive, strong, and full of character. This was, unfortunately, hidden when he took to wearing—some years afterwards—a beard and mustache. But this is the only alteration I can remember in him, as to me his face never seemed to change at all. He had always an active, young, and boyish-looking figure, and a way of holding his head a little thrown back, which was very characteristic. This carriage of the head, and his manner altogether, are exactly inherited by one of his sons.

Charles Dickens was always a great walker, but in these days he rode and drove more than he did in later years. He was fond of the game of battledore and shuttlecock, and used constantly to play with friends on summer evenings. There is a little drawing by the late Daniel Maclise, where a shuttlecock is to be seen in the air. This is suggestive of many and many a pleasant evening in the garden, which was shut in all round by a high wall, and where, in summer time, a tent was always put up, and where, after dinner the family would adjourn for “dessert,” This was always considered by us a special treat.

As the children grew older, there were evenings when they would be allowed to drive out into the country, and then get out of the carriage and walk with “Papa.” It seems now as if the wild flowers which used to be gathered on those evenings in the country lanes were sweeter and more beautiful than any which grow nowadays! The very lanes have all disappeared and grown into houses. But the memory of the one who originated those treats, and who was the good spirit of the time, can never be blotted out.

Charles Dickens brought a little white Havannah spaniel with him from America, and from that time there were always various pets about the house. In particular there was an eagle and a raven. The eagle had a sort of grotto made for him in the garden, to which he was chained, and being chained he was not quite such an object of terror to the children as the raven was. This raven, with its mischievous nature, delighted in frightening them. One of the little daughters had very chubby, rosy legs, and the raven used to run after and peck at them, until poor “Tatie's leds” became a constant subject for commiseration. Yet the raven was a great source of amusement to the family, and there were countless funny stories about him. He was especially wicked to the eagle; as soon as his food was brought to him, the raven would swoop down upon it, take it just beyond the eagle's reach, mount guard over it, dancing round it, and chuckling. When he considered he had tantalised the poor bird enough, he would eat the food as deliberately and slowly as possible, and then hop away perfectly contented with himself. He was not the celebrated Grip of “Barnaby Rudge,” but was given after the death of that bird.

In bringing up his children, Charles Dickens was always most anxious to impress upon them that as long as they were honest and truthful, so would they always be sure of having justice done to them. To show how strongly he felt about this, and what a horror he had of their being frightened, or in any way unnecessarily intimidated, his own words shall be quoted:—

“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may only be small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.” And again:—“It would be difficult to overstate the intensity and accuracy of an intelligent child's observation. At that impressible time of life, it must sometimes produce a fixed impression. If the fixed impression be of an object terrible to the child, it will be (for want of reasoning upon) inseparable from great fear. Force the child at such a time, be Spartan with it, send it into the dark against its will, and you had better murder it.”

He was always tender with us, as I have said, in our small troubles and trials. When the time came for the eldest son to be sent to a boarding-school, there was great grief in the nursery at Devonshire Terrace, and he came unexpectedly upon one of his daughters who was putting away some school-books, and crying bitterly at the time. To him the separation could not have seemed such a terrible one, as the boy was certainly to come home once a month, if not once a week. But he soothed the weeping child, and reasoned with her, using much the same arguments as he did years afterwards, when the well-beloved Plorn went to Australia—namely, that these partings were “Hard, hard things, but must be borne,” until at last the sobs ceased, and the poor aching little heart had found consolation in his loving sympathy.