THEIR FIRST LOVE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1330, 6 January 1912, Page 11

THEIR FIRST LOVE.

People who like to give rein to tlieir imaginative:faculties have probably often «peculated upon what' might hare happened if .certain notable persons had married their■'first-loves.-- Do'esany man ever forget his first lore, however happily he may have mated'with another? I doubt it. That delightful writer, Mark Rutherford, who, after many, years, married his own first love, then a widow, asserts his conviction" that a -first love never dies. A. boy falls in lovo at 18 or 19. The attachment comes to nothing. It is broken off for a multitude of reasons, and he sees , its absurdity.. He marries afterwards some othor woman whom he even adores, and he has children for whom ho spends his life. Yet, "ill. an obscuro corner, of. his soul,-.ho preserves everlastingly'.the'cherished picture of the girl who first'was dear to him."' ■■ -How true this is: it would be difficult to show from the life-record of many a world-famous personage. It was, at ony rate, the experience of Charles Dickens, who is a "typical" subject just now b;causo of his centenary. 'As most people are aware, Dickens's marriage turned out bo unhappily that a separation had to bo arranged. The lady was Miss Catherine Hogarth, a daughter of that George Hogarth, who found a life-partner in the family of George Thomson, the friend of 'Burns. Mrs. Dickens was a seusible, matronly, competent woman, but she was not the wifo for the novelist." - She neither understood him, nor. : took pains to" understand him. The domestic troublo bad been going on for many years before Dickens, in 1857, relieved his mind to Forster on tho subject. Just before this he had written pathetically—"Tho old days! the old days! Shall I ever, I wonder, get | the frame of mind back as it used to be then? Something of it perhaps—but never quito as it used to be. I find that the skeleton in my closet is becoming a pretty big one." -So, after twenty years of wedded life, trying to "make the best of it" (a sorry business in matrimony), Dickens concluded that ho and his wife, the mother of his children, were "not made for each other." He claimed no immunity for blame. Shared the Blame. . It is not only that she makes me weary and unhappy," he said, "but that I make her so, too —and much inoro so. Her temperament will not go with mine. It mattered not so much when wo had ourselves to consider, but reasons have been, growing since which makes it all but hopeless that we should even try to struggle on.' Again—"There is plenty of fault on my side, I daresay, in the way of-a thousand uncertainties, caprices, and difficulties of disposition; but only one thing will alter all that, ami that is, the end which altera ■Dickens's friends were, of course, distressed at the prospect of separation between husband and wife, and some of them tried.to adjust the differences that had arisen. Their attempts proved futile. In .Hay, ISSB, Airs. Dickens left her home for ever, the eldest son going with her at her own express wish, and the other children remaining with their father. It is said that Dickens and his wife never spoke to each other again. _ Tho public, as usual, took sides, but it is significantly in favour of Dickens that his wife's sister,' Miss Hogarth, remained at tho head of his household. Most of Dickens's • friends also continued loyal to him, though others considered his wife the aggrieved party. Mrs.' Dickers died in November, 1879 thus surviving her husband nearly nine and a half years. His First Lov«, But what about Dickens's first love! Hor nam? was. Maria Beadnell, and she is tho original of Dora Copperfield, as well as of Flora in "Little Dorrit." She was the daughter of John Beadnell, manager for a- firm of London bankers. Dickens was introduced to her family by his friend, Henry IColle, who subsequently married Anne Beadnell. At th,ifi timo Dickens was a: youth of eighteen, with long, slightlycurling hair, beautiful eyes, and a brilliant colour. Maria was a year older. Dickens, then qualifying for a reporter, and reading very hard, fell at once in lovo nith Maria, and she flirted with him very desperately. Maria was, in fact, a wilful coquette, at one time ropulsing her admirer, at another time drawing hiiri on. ■Presently sho was 6ent to school in Paris, where she remaiued from 1831 to 1833. Dickens cherished his passion till it became infatuation; but the girl seems to have thought littlo of hiic. Iler parents, not knowing DJiy more than hersolf what fame was coming to Dickens, desired. a more eligible match for their daughter, and the daughter apparently took this view herself. At any rate, Dickens was turned bitterly away, lie was full of desolation anil wretchedness, ■ und considered that ho had been .coldly and deliberately trifled with. Ho had, hu said, endured more from his sweetheart than any creaturo breathing ever bore from a woman before; but in spite of this his love, he added, \vould be lasting. Ho went on his knees at the end, put aside all pride, and pleaded intensely for a response. Maria returned some "of bis letters, but kept copies of them. This was peculiar; but finally sho gave a cold and reproachful reply; and in May, 1833, Dickens went his way. In April, 1830, ho was married to, Miss Hogarth, though ho -had assured Maria,

Beadnoll, "I havo never loved, and I never can love, any human being but yourself." After Twenty Years, More than twenty years passed before any relatiuns wero resumed with tho old love, iiiid then it- was Maria who wrote to Dickens. She had beon married in 1545 to Henry Louis Winter, who becauio vicar of Alnmouth, in Northumberland, whero he died in It was' in .February, 1855, that sho first addressed Dckeus. lie was delighted to see her handwriting again, and I'.o replied warmly, if not exuberantly, to her letter, lie recalled their old trysailsplaces, her green cloak his happiness, Ins misery. He proposed that .Mrs. Dickens should call c» Maria, and arrange a day for a quiet meeting. Later on lie confessed that whatever of fancy, romance, energy, passion, aspiration, and determination belonged to him, he couid never be separated trom her for whom ho would havo died with alacrity. He said that'he had never hea.nl the name Maria with out starting, and thinking of the deep lovo he once bestowed on her. He referred her to "David Copporfield," and told her she would seo herself in Dora. People had t praised him for the pretty lovemaking in that story, not knowing that it was truth, neither more nor Jess. Ho asked her to read the book and to think "how dearly that boy must have loved me, and how vividly this man remembers it." -Mrs. Winter appears to have written explaining that she would have married Dickens if it had nto been for her parents; and ho replied with simple and touching emotion in one of the most remarkable letters ever written. A Remarkable Letter. It is worth quoting verbatim.— "My entire devotion to you, and tho wasted tenderness of those hard years, which I have ever sinco half-loved and half-dreaded to recall, made so deep an impression on mo that I. refer to it a habit of suppression which .now belongs to me, which, I know, is no part of my original nature,, but which makes me I

chary of showing my affection even lo my children except when they are very young. You are always the same in mv remembrance. When you say you are toothless, fat, old, and ugly, which I do not believe, I fly away to tho house in Lombard Stret .... and you in a sort of raspberry-coloured dress, with a little black trimming at the top—black velvet, it soems to be made of—cut into vandvkes, an immense number of them, with'my boyish heart pinned like a captured butterfly on every one of them.' Following upon this, Maria asked for a personal interview, and again Dickens heartily responded. Then, alas! they met. In February, 1855, he had written to Mrs. Winter: "A few days ago (just be-,, fore Conperfield) I began to write my life, intending the MS. to be found among my papers when its subject should be concluded. But as I began to appoach within sight of that part of it ITcfermg to his old lovel I lost oourage and burned the rest." Later; however, there reached Mrs. Winter a copy of "David Copperfield" inscribed: "Charles Dickens to Maria Winter. In remembrance of old times." Disillusionment. But when these old lovers actually met in the flesh-all tho illusion vanished, so far as Dickens was concerned. He was, indeed, sorely disenchanted, and was cruel enough to record the effect in his account of Arthur Clennam's meeting with ilora,. "This is Flora. Flora, always tall, had grown to 129 very broad too, and short of breath, but that w.a 1 not much. Flora, whom he left a lily, had become a peony, but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly; that was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal blow."

The end of the story is dreary enough. Mrs. Winter wrote from time to time letters apparently exuberant, but sho was repeatedly checked by courteous refusals. Her husband failed, and she appealed for assistance to her old lover. But Dickens declined to be drawn into responsibility, and suggested that her father (who left .£40,000) ought to help. It is not unlikely that Dickens preserved Miss Bead noil's letters until that September day in 1860 of which he wrote: "Yesterday I bnrnt in the field at Gad's Hill the accumulated letters and papers of twenty years. They sent up a smoke like the genie when he got out of the casket on the seashore, and as it was an exquisite day when I began, and rained very heavily when I finished, I suspect my correspondence of having orercast the 'face 6f the heavens." —J. Cluthbert Hadden, in the "Weekly Scotsman."

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