THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18906, 22 January 1927, Page 13

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

HALF HOURS IN A LIBRARY,

(specially weittev fok the raiss.) By A. H. Gwnuxg. Ct'.'l.-OX AUTHOHS AND MAHHIAGE (1): CHARLES DICTvtN^ Ought authors to marry, and if they do, what are their prospects nf happiness in the marriage state'" The (juration is not easy to answer, sinco ditfcrence of opinion is wide. Perhaps the most convincing reply is to be found in the matrimonial experiences of a few of tho more prominent figures in English literature. The case of Charles Dickens at once comes to mind ; a man uho ha 6 contributed as much, if not mare, than any other to the gaiety of the nations. His iiame is closely connected with the riot of Christmas festivities, and tho pages of his books are sources of unrestrained laughter. How fares Charles Dickens in the matter of marriage? Foster in his "Life'' makes this record and without comment: "Tho Timee" of March 26th, 1836', gave notice that on the Jllst would be published the first shilling number of the posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club, edited by Boz; and tho same journal, a few days later, announced that on April 2nd Mr Charles Dickens had married Catherine, the eldest daughter of Mr George Hogarth.

When Dickens was parliamentary reporter on the "Daily Chronicle," he caino into touch with Mr George Hogarth, one of the editors of that paper, and the two became intimate. Early in 1835 Hogarth planned an evening edition of the "Chronicle," and with the idea of stimulating its sale, he proposed to Dickens that he should write an original article for the first number of the new evening paper. Dickens improved on the suggestion and promised a series of articles, similar to those he had clone for the monthly magazine, stipulating that he should bo paid for them in addition to his salary as reporter. Accordingly his weekly stipend was raised from five guineas to seven, and on January 31st, 1835 the first number of the evening "Chronicle" was published, containing the first of the articles which subsequently became famous as "Sketches by 130z." Under what circumstances Dickens became intimate with George Hogarth's family,' and when he first made the acquaintance of Catherine Hogarth does not appear, nor are any details .available concerning the period of courtship. This, however, was not his first love affair.

first love affair is reflected to gome extent in the reference in "David Coppei'neld" to David's child-wife. The original of is supposed to have beep one,of two sisters named Beadwell, whom Dickens met at the house of a mutual friend, a Mr W. H. Kolle, then epgaged in a banking house 111 the City of London. This was in the year 1830. It is fair to assume that Dickens, suffering from the reaction produced by the realisation that his fove affair v with "Dora" was hopeless, gpught to console himself with Catherine Hogarth. Poster making comparison between th'e hero of "David Copperfield" nnd its author, and noting the pqinte of similarity, says of Dickens:

Ha, too, had hia Dors,, at apparently the samo IiPP 6 * 683 elevation; striven for as the one only thing to be attained, and even more unattainable, for neither did he succeed, nor happily did she die; but the one idol, like the other, supplying the motive to. exertion for the time, nnd otherwise) opening out to the idolater, both in fact and in Action, a uighly unsubstantial, happy, foolish time. I used to la.iigh and toll him I had i.'o belief in any but the book Dora, until tho incident of a sudden reappearance pf tho real one in his life, nearly six years after "Copperfield" was written, convinoed me that there had been a more actual foundation fqr those chapters of his book than I was teady to siippose.

Even then Foster could hardly bring himself to believe in an original Dora until his sceptioism evoked a letter from the novelist which finally disposed of all doubt. Writing in 1855 to Foster, Dickens described the strength of his feelings five and twenty years earlier and flays: "It excluded every other idea from my mind for four years, at a time of life when four years are equal to four times four; and I went at it with a determination to overcome all the difficulties, which fairly lifted me up into that newspaper life and floated me away oyer a hundred men's heads"; to which lie adds: "No one can imagine in the most distant degree what pain the recollection faye me in Copperfield. And just as can >never open that book, as I could any other boolc, I cannot see the face (even at four and forty) or hoar the voice without going wandering away over the ashes of all that youth and hope in the wildest manner." Foster retained his scepticism to the last and referring to the fact that Miss Beadwell, when Dickens met her in later life is supposed to have furnished him with the model of Flora Finching in "Little Dorritt," Foster writes:—.

More and more plainly seen, howover, in the light of four and forty, the romance glided visibly away, its work being fairly done; and at the close of tho month following that in which his letter was written, during which he had very quietly made a formal call with his wife at his youthful Dora's house, and contemplated -vith a calm equanimity, in the hall, her stuffed favourite Jip, he began tho fiction in which there was a Flora to set against its predecessor's Dora, both derived from the lame original. The fancy had a.comlo humour in it he found it ™V**M° ° resist/but it was kindly and pleasant to the last; and if the later picture shoved Urn plenty to laugh at in tins re rosnec of hie youth, there was nothing he thought of more tenderly than the earlier as long as he was conscious of anything.

Tho marriage of Charles Dickens to Catherine Thomson Hogarth took place in the Church of St. Luke, Chelsea, of which parish the Rev. Charles Kmgsley was rectgr. the bridegroom's old friend, Thpnias Beard, acted as "best man. The novelist's brother-in-law. Henry Burnetl;, in" his book, "Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil," says >f tho wedding: "As for the wedding, even Boswell could have nothing to say, unless he had invented it Mr Dickens had not vet taken hold, as soon after he did, of the busy and talented men (that is to say, he did not yet number them anioncst his personal friends) '....' The breakfast was the quietest possible. The Dickens family, the Hogarth family, and Mr Beard comprised the whole of the company. A few common pleasant things were said, healths drunk, with a few words said by either party —yet all things passed off very pleasantly and al) seemed happy, not the least so Dickens and his young girlish wife. She was a bright, pleasant bride, dressed in the simplest and neatest mapper, and looked better perhaps than if she had been enabled to aim at something more. The honeymoon was spent in the secluded little village of Chalk, about five miles from Rochester and two from Gravesend, and in the farmhouse where they stayed were penned soma of the earlier cuqpfcm of "Piekwick."

When Dickens had been married be>twcen live and six years, ho left England in company with his wife, for his first tour in America, a trip which had fruit in the ''American Notes." This was in 1841!?, and Mr Frank T. .Marzials tays of tho atmosphere of that visit: "It is pleasant to note that there was, so far, no great 'incompatibility of temper' between him and his wife. He speaks of her enthusiastically in his correspondence as a 'most admirable traveller,' and he expatiates on the flood temper with which she had borne tho fatigues and jars of a most trying journey." It may be assumed, howover, that Dickens was never really in love with Catherine Hogarth, an assumption borne out in a volume called •'f.ovo Letters of Great Men and Women," in which under the head of Charles Dickens, the editor says: 'The letters can hardly be called love letters proper. They are not in the clouds, and do not deal in oil's and ah's, and seraphic raptures, but display good honest sentiments and-much detailed discussion about the subjects nearest his heart, tho work he is engaged on." The sample letter quoted is dated 1835, before their marriage, and when Dickens was still a Parliamentary reporter :

My Dearest Kale,—The House is up, hut I am very sorry 16 cay that I must stay at home. I l.ave had u visit from my pnMiehci-3 this morning, and the plnry (Pickwick! cannot bo anv longer delayed; it must bo dono to-morrow, as I)icre are more important considerations than tho mere payment for the story involved. I must exercisq a, little self-denial and set to work. They 'Chapman and Hall) have made mo an offei of fourteen pounds a month to write and edit a new publication they contemplate—entirely by myself, to bo published monthly, and each number to contain foiir wood-cuts. I am to make my estimato and calculation and'give them an answer on Friday mornin". The work will be no joke, hut the emolument is too tempting to -esist. . .

In 18fc>0 Dickens .sold Tavistock House in London and made Gad's Hill Placo his final home. For some time before. 1858 Dickens had 'been in an ever-excited, nervous, morbid state. He could not keep quiet. Towards the end of 1857 he'wrote to Foster:—"l have now no relief but inaction. lam become incapable of rest. I am quite confident I should rust, break, and die if I spared myself. Much better to die going." Some time later he wrote: "If I could not walk fast and far I should just expire and perish." It was Harriet Martineau, who knew and liked Dickens, who observed, "I am much struck by his hysterical restlessness. It must liave been terribly wearying to his wife." The truth was that Dickens and his wife got upon one another's nerves-. "Why is it?" ho remarked to Foster, "that as with poor David (Copperfield) a sense comes always crushing on me now, when 1 fall into low spirits, as of one happiness I have missed in life, and one friend and companion I have never ,made?" At another time he said, "1 find the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." Becoming more confidential he added: —"Poor Catherine and I are not suited to each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but I make her so too, and much rnoro so. She is exactly what you know in the way of heing amiable and complying, but we are strangely ill assorted for the bond there is between us. . . . Her tem-

peranient will not go with mine." And in March, 1858, he wrote: ''lt is not with me a matter of will or trial or sufferance, or of good humour, or making tho best of it, or making tho worst of it, any longer. It is all despairingly over." Thus it came about, that after twenty years of married life in March 1858, Dickens and his wife agreed to separate; ho allowing her £6OO a year and his oldest son going to live with his mother. The other children remained at Gad's Hill in charge of their aunt, Miss Gcorgina Hogarth.

i''ostcr makes the very slightest reference to .this painful incident, regarding it as a strictly private matter; publicity, however, was given to the novelist's domestic affairs by tho publication in the New York "Tribune" of a confidential communication addressed to Mr Arthur Smith, authorising him to contradict the false rumours and scandals which had got into circulation and which cast a shir upon the morality of the novelist. Accordingly Dickens published in "Household Words" an article in which he gave his side of tho matter and which headed sonal," attracted the widest attention. In his "Recollections and Reminiscences'' Edmund Yates says:—

Dickens, tho master of humour and puthos, the arch-compoller of tears and laughter, was in no sense an emotional man. Very far indeed was he from "wearing his heart upon his sleeve," where his own affairs were concerned, though under Mr Delano's advice ho was induced to publish that most uncalled for statement regarding his separation, a step which, in the goperal estimation, did him more harm than the separation itself. Ho showed me this statement in proof, and young as I was, and fresh a3 was then our acquaintance, I felt so strongly that I ventured to express my feelings as to the advisability of its issue. Dickens said Foster and Lemon were of tho same opinion; he quarrelled with Lemon and Messrs Bradbury and Evans for refusing to publish the statement in "Punch," and never, I think, spoke to any of them again, but that he himself felt strongly thnt it ought to appear; that on Foster's suggestion he had referred the matter to Dnlane, and bv that gentleman's dictation lie would abide.

Ecjnumd Yates declares it had been obvious to those visiting at Tavistock House that for some time the relations between host and hostess had been somewhat strained; this state of affairs being commonly ascribed to irritability on Dickens's part and on his wife's side "to a little love of indolence and ease such as, however, provoking to their husbands, is not uncommon among middle-aged matrons with large families" There were ten of a familyAnd Yates concludes: "Dickens had the faults as well as the virtues of tho literary character. A man who has given to th» world so many disr tinet creations—creations which will always have their place in English literature and which have passed into tho currency of tho English languagewas full of the irritability, the sensitiveness, and the intolerance of dullness, which might have been expected." At least Dickens might have spared his wife the unkindly reference in his will; she lived for nearly nine and a half years after the death of her husband.