WHY CHARLES DICKENS WAS SEPARATED FROM HIS WIFE.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 635, 12 February 1870, Page 3

WHY CHARLES DICKENS WAS SEPARATED FROM HIS WIFE.

«•- The great novelist prefaces his letter as follows : — " You have not only my full permission to show this, but I beg you to show this to any one who has been misled into doing me wrong." We therefore take pleasure in presenting this statement to our readers : — " My dear , — Mrs Dickens and I have lived unhappily together for many years. Hardly any one who has known us intimately can fail to have known that we are, in all respects of character and temperament, wonderfully unsuited to each other. I suppose that no two people not vicious in themselves ever were joined together, who had difficulty in understanding one another, or who had less in common. An attached woman servant (more friend to b'jth of us than a servant), who lived with us sixteen years, and is now married, and who was, and still is, in Mrs Dickens's confidence and mine, who had the closest familiar experience of this unhappiness in London, in the country, in France, in Italy, wherever we have been, year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, will be testimony to this. "Nothing has, on many occasions, stood between us and a separation but Mrs Dickens's sister, Georgina Hogarth. From the age of 15 she has devoted herself to our house and children. She has been their playmate, nurse, instructress, friend, protectress, adviser, and companion. Tn the manly consideration towards Mrs Dickens which I owe to my wife, I merely remark of her that the peculiarity of her character has thrown all the care of the children on some one else. Ido not know — I cannot by any stretch of fancy imagine — what would have become of them but for this aunt who has grown up with them, to whom they are devoted, and who has sacrificed the best part of her youth and life to them. "She has remonstrated, reasoned, suffered, and toiled, and came again to prevent aseparation betweenMrsDickens andme. Mrs Dickens has often expressed to her her sense of her affectionate care and devotion to the house — never more strongly than within the last twelve months. "For some years past Mrs Dickens has been in the habit of representing to me that it would be better for her to go away and live apart ; that her always increasing estrangement made a mental disorder under which she sometimes labours ; more, that she felt herself unfit for the life she had to lead as my wife, and that she would be far better away. I have uniformly replied that she must bear our misfortunes and fight the fight out to the end, that the children were the first consideration, and that I feared they must bind us together. 'in appearance.' "At length, within these three weeks, it was suggested to me by Foster that, even for their sakes, it would surely be better to reconstruct and re-arrange the unhappy home. I empowered him to treat with Mrs Dickens as the friend of both of us for one-and-twenty years. Mrs Dickens wished to add, on her part, Mark Lemon, and did so. On Saturday last Lemon wrote to Foster that Mrs Dickens ' gratefully and thankfully accepted ' the terms I proposed to her. Of the pecuniary part of them, I will only say that I believe they are as generous as if Mrs Dickens were a lady of distinction and I a man of fortune. The remaining parts of them are easily described — my eldest boy to live with Mrs Dickens and to take care of her ; my eldest girl to keep my house ; both my girls and all my children but the eldest son to live with me in continued companionship of their aunt Georgina, for whom they have all the tenderest affections that I have ever seen among young people, and who has a higher claim (as I have often declared for many years) upon my affection, respect and gratitude than anybody in this world. " 1 hope that no one who may become acquainted with what I write here can possibly be so cruel and unjust as to put any misconstruction on our separation so far. My older children all understand it perfectly, and all accept it as inevitable. " There is not a shadow of doubt or concealment among us. My eldest son and I are one as to it all. "Two wicked persons, who should have spoken very differently of me, in consideration of earned respect and gratitude, have (as I am told, and, indeed to my own personal knowledge) coupled with this separation the name of a young lady for whom I have a great attachment and regard. I will not repeat the name — I honour it too much. Upon my soul and honour, there is not on this earth a more virtuous and spotless creaature than that young lady. I know her to be innocent and pure, and as good as my own daughters. "Further, I am quite sure that Mrs Dickens, having received this assurance from me, must now believe it, in the respect I know her to have for me, in the perfect confidence I know her, in her better moments, to repose in my truthfulness. " On thi3 head, again, there is not a shadow of doubt or concealment between my^ children and me. All is open and plain among us, as though we were brothers and sisters. They are perfectly certain that I would not deceive them, and the confidence among us is without a fear. . C.D."