Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2238 page)

Between the first and the second numbers of
Pickwick
, the artist, Mr. Seymour, died by his own hand; and the number came out with three instead of four illustrations. Dickens had seen the unhappy man only once, forty-eight hours before his death; when he went to Furnival’s Inn with an etching for the “stroller’s tale” in that number, which, altered at Dickens’s suggestion, he brought away again for the few further touches that occupied him to a late hour of the night before he destroyed himself. A notice attached to the number informed the public of this latter fact. There was at first a little difficulty in replacing him, and for a single number Mr. Buss was interposed. But before the fourth number a choice had been made, which as time went on was so thoroughly justified, that through the greater part of the wonderful career which was then beginning the connection was kept up, and Mr. Hablot Browne’s name is not unworthily associated with the masterpieces of Dickens’s genius. An incident which I heard related by Mr. Thackeray at one of the Royal Academy dinners belongs to this time: “I can remember when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works in covers which were coloured light green and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and I recollect walking up to his chambers in Furnival’s Inn, with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable.” Dickens has himself described another change now made in the publication: “We started with a number of twenty-four pages and four illustrations. Mr. Seymour’s sudden and lamented death before the second number was published, brought about a quick decision upon a point already in agitation: the number became one of thirty-two pages with only two illustrations, and remained so to the end.”

The Session of 1836 terminated his connection with the gallery, and some fruits of his increased leisure showed themselves before the close of the year. His eldest sister’s musical attainments and connections had introduced him to many cultivators and professors of that art; he was led to take much interest in Mr. Braham’s enterprise at the St. James’s theatre; and in aid of it he wrote a farce for Mr. Harley, founded upon one of his sketches, and the story and songs for an opera composed by his friend Mr. Hullah. Both the
Strange Gentleman
, acted in September, and the
Village Coquettes
, produced in December, 1836, had a good success; and the last is memorable to me for having brought me first into personal communication with Dickens.

CHAPTER VI.

WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS.

1837.

First Letter from him — As he was Thirty-five Years ago — Mrs. Carlyle and Leigh Hunt — Birth of Eldest Son — From Furnival’s Inn to Doughty Street — A Long-Remembered Sorrow — I visit him — Hasty Compacts with Publishers — Self-sold into Quasi-Bondage — Agreements for Editorship and Writing — Mr. Macrone’s Scheme to reissue
Sketches
— Attempts to prevent it — Exorbitant Demand — Impatience of Suspense — Purchase advised —
Oliver Twist
— Characters real to himself — Sense of Responsibility for his Writings — Criticism that satisfied him — Help given with his Proofs — Writing
Pickwick
, Nos. 14 and 15 — Scenes in a Debtors’ Prison — A Recollection of Smollett — Reception of
Pickwick
— A Popular Rage — Mr. Carlyle’s “Dreadful” Story — Secrets of Success —
Pickwick
inferior to Later Books — Exception for Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick — Personal Habits of C. D. — Reliefs after Writing — Natural Discontents — The Early Agreements — Tale to follow
Oliver Twist
— Compromise with Mr. Bentley — Trip to Flanders — First Visit to Broadstairs — Piracies of
Pickwick
— A Sufferer from Agreements — First Visit to Brighton — What he is doing with
Oliver Twist
— Reading De Foe — ”No Thoroughfare” — Proposed Help to Macready.

The first letter I had from him was at the close of 1836, from Furnival’s Inn, when he sent me the book of his opera of the
Village Coquettes
, which had been published by Mr. Bentley; and this was followed, two months later, by his collected
Sketches
, both first and second series; which he desired me to receive “as a very small testimony of the donor’s regard and obligations, as well as of his desire to cultivate and avail himself of a friendship which has been so pleasantly thrown in his way. . . . In short, if you will receive them for my sake and not for their own, you will very greatly oblige me.” I had met him in the interval at the house of our common friend Mr. Ainsworth, and I remember vividly the impression then made upon me.

Very different was his face in those days from that which photography has made familiar to the present generation. A look of youthfulness first attracted you, and then a candor and openness of expression which made you sure of the qualities within. The features were very good. He had a capital forehead, a firm nose with full wide nostril, eyes wonderfully beaming with intellect and running over with humour and cheerfulness, and a rather prominent mouth strongly marked with sensibility. The head was altogether well formed and symmetrical, and the air and carriage of it were extremely spirited. The hair so scant and grizzled in later days was then of a rich brown and most luxuriant abundance, and the bearded face of his last two decades had hardly a vestige of hair or whisker; but there was that in the face as I first recollect it which no time could change, and which remained implanted on it unalterably to the last. This was the quickness, keenness, and practical power, the eager, restless, energetic outlook on each several feature, that seemed to tell so little of a student or writer of books, and so much of a man of action and business in the world. Light and motion flashed from every part of it.
It was as if made of steel
, was said of it, four or five years after the time to which I am referring, by a most original and delicate observer, the late Mrs. Carlyle. “What a face is his to meet in a drawing-room!” wrote Leigh Hunt to me, the morning after I made them known to each other. “It has the life and soul in it of fifty human beings.” In such sayings are expressed not alone the restless and resistless vivacity and force of which I have spoken, but that also which lay beneath them of steadiness and hard endurance.

Several unsuccessful efforts were made by each to get the other to his house before the door of either was opened at last. A son had been born to him on Twelfth-day (the 6th January, 1837), and before the close of the following month he and his wife were in the lodgings at Chalk they had occupied after their marriage. Early in March there is a letter from him accounting for the failure of a promise to call on me because of “a crew of house-agents and attorneys” through whom he had nearly missed his conveyance to Chalk, and been made “more than half wild besides.” This was his last letter from Furnival’s Inn. In that same month he went to 48, Doughty Street; and in his first letter to me from that address, dated at the close of the month, there is this passage: “We only called upon you a second time in the hope of getting you to dine with us, and were much disappointed not to find you. I have delayed writing a reply to your note, meaning to call upon you. I have been so much engaged, however, in the pleasant occupation of ‘moving’ that I have not had time; and I am obliged at last to write and say that I have been long engaged to the
Pickwick
publishers to a dinner in honour of that hero which comes off to-morrow. I am consequently unable to accept your kind invite, which I frankly own I should have liked much better.”

That Saturday’s celebration of his twelfth number, the anniversary of the birth of
Pickwick
, preceded by but a few weeks a personal sorrow which profoundly moved him. His wife’s next younger sister, Mary, who lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more than by graces of person had made herself the ideal of his life, died with a terrible suddenness that for the time completely bore him down.
His grief and suffering were intense, and affected him, as will be seen, through many after-years. The publication of
Pickwick
was interrupted for two months, the effort of writing it not being possible to him. He moved for change of scene to Hampstead, and here, at the close of May, I visited him, and became first his guest. More than ordinarily susceptible at the moment to all kindliest impressions, his heart opened itself to mine. I left him as much his friend, and as entirely in his confidence, as if I had known him for years. Nor had many weeks passed before he addressed to me from Doughty Street words which it is my sorrowful pride to remember have had literal fulfillment: “I look back with unmingled pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of our attachment. It shall go hard, I hope, ere anything but Death impairs the toughness of a bond now so firmly riveted.” It remained unweakened till death came.

There were circumstances that drew us at once into frequent and close communication. What the sudden popularity of his writings implied, was known to others some time before it was known to himself; and he was only now becoming gradually conscious of all the disadvantage this had placed him at. He would have laughed if, at this outset of his wonderful fortune in literature, his genius acknowledged by all without misgiving, young, popular, and prosperous, any one had compared him to the luckless men of letters of former days, whose common fate was to be sold into a slavery which their later lives were passed in vain endeavors to escape from. Not so was his fate to be, yet something of it he was doomed to experience. He had unwittingly sold himself into a quasi-bondage, and had to purchase his liberty at a heavy cost, after considerable suffering.

It was not until the fourth or fifth number of
Pickwick
(in the latter Sam Weller made his first appearance) that its importance began to be understood by “the trade,” and on the eve of the issue of its sixth number, the 22d August, 1836, he had signed an agreement with Mr. Bentley to undertake the editorship of a monthly magazine to be started the following January, to which he was to supply a serial story; and soon afterwards he had agreed with the same publisher to write two other tales, the first at a specified early date; the expressed remuneration in each case being certainly quite inadequate to the claims of a writer of any marked popularity. Under these Bentley agreements he was now writing, month by month, the first half of
Oliver Twist
, and, under his Chapman & Hall agreement, the last half of
Pickwick
, not even by a week in advance of the printer with either; when a circumstance became known to him of which he thus wrote to me:

“I heard half an hour ago, on authority which leaves me in no doubt about the matter (from the binder of
Pickwick
, in fact), that Macrone intends publishing a new issue of my
Sketches
in monthly parts of nearly the same size and in just the same form as the
Pickwick Papers
. I need not tell you that this is calculated to injure me most seriously, or that I have a very natural and most decided objection to being supposed to presume upon the success of the
Pickwick
, and thus foist this old work upon the public in its new dress for the mere purpose of putting money in my own pocket. Neither need I say that the fact of my name being before the town, attached to three publications at the same time, must prove seriously prejudicial to my reputation. As you are acquainted with the circumstances under which these copyrights were disposed of, and as I know I may rely on your kind help, may I beg you to see Macrone, and to state in the strongest and most emphatic manner my feeling on this point? I wish him to be reminded of the sums he paid for those books; of the sale he has had for them; of the extent to which he has already pushed them; and of the very great profits he must necessarily have acquired from them. I wish him also to be reminded that no intention of publishing them in this form was in the remotest manner hinted to me, by him or on his behalf, when he obtained possession of the copyright. I then wish you to put it to his feelings of common honesty and fair dealing whether after this communication he will persevere in his intention.” What else the letter contained need not be quoted, but it strongly moved me to do my best.

I found Mr. Macrone inaccessible to all arguments of persuasion, however. That he had bought the book for a small sum at a time when the smallest was not unimportant to the writer, shortly before his marriage, and that he had since made very considerable profits by it, in no way disturbed his position that he had a right to make as much as he could of what was his, without regard to how it had become so. There was nothing for it but to change front, and, admitting it might be a less evil to the unlucky author to repurchase than to let the monthly issue proceed, to ask what further gain was looked for; but so wide a mouth was opened at this that I would have no part in the costly process of filling it. I told Dickens so, and strongly counseled him to keep quiet for a time.

But the worry and vexation were too great with all the work he had in hand, and I was hardly surprised next day to receive the letter sent me; which yet should be prefaced with the remark that suspense of any kind was at all times intolerable to the writer. The interval between the accomplishment of anything, and “its first motion,” Dickens never could endure, and he was too ready to make any sacrifice to abridge or end it. This did not belong to the strong side of his character, and advantage was frequently taken of the fact. “I sent down just now to know whether you were at home (two o’clock), as Chapman & Hall were with me, and, the case being urgent, I wished to have the further benefit of your kind advice and assistance. Macrone and H —
 
— (arcades ambo) waited on them this morning, and after a long discussion peremptorily refused to take one farthing less than the two thousand pounds. H —
 
— repeated the statement of figures which he made to you yesterday, and put it to Hall whether he could say from his knowledge of such matters that the estimate of probable profit was exorbitant. Hall, whose judgment may be relied on in such matters, could not dispute the justice of the calculation. And so the matter stood. In this dilemma it occurred to them (my
Pickwick
men), whether, if the
Sketches must
appear in monthly numbers, it would not be better for them to appear for their benefit and mine conjointly than for Macrone’s sole use and behoof; whether they, having all the
Pickwick
machinery in full operation, could not obtain for them a much larger sale than Macrone could ever get; and whether, even at this large price of two thousand pounds, we might not, besides retaining the copyright, reasonably hope for a good profit on the outlay. These suggestions having presented themselves, they came straight to me (having obtained a few hours’ respite) and proposed that we should purchase the copyrights between us for the two thousand pounds, and publish them in monthly parts. I need not say that no other form of publication would repay the expenditure; and they wish me to explain by an address that
they
, who may be fairly put forward as the parties, have been driven into that mode of publication, or the copyrights would have been lost. I considered the matter in every possible way. I sent for you, but you were out. I thought of” — what need not be repeated, now that all is past and gone — ”and consented. Was I right? I think you will say yes.” I could not say no, though I was glad to have been no party to a price so exorbitant; which yet profited extremely little the person who received it. He died in hardly more than two years; and if Dickens had enjoyed the most liberal treatment at his hands, he could not have exerted himself more generously for the widow and children.