Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2312 page)

It was a letter from a Russian man of letters, dated from St. Petersburg and signed “Trinarch Ivansvitch Wredenskii,” sending him a translation of
Dombey
into Russian; and informing him that his works, which before had only been translated in the journals, and with certain omissions, had now been translated in their entire form by his correspondent, though even he had found an omission to be necessary in his version of
Pickwick
. He adds, with an exquisite courtesy to our national tongue which is yet not forgetful of the claims of his own nationality, that his difficulties (in the Sam Weller direction and others) had arisen from the “impossibility of portraying faithfully the beauties of the original in the Russian language, which, though the richest in Europe in its expressiveness, is far from being elabourate enough for literature like other civilized languages.” He had however, he assured Dickens, been unremitting in his efforts to live with his thoughts; and the exalted opinion he had formed of them was attended by only one wish, that such a writer “could but have expanded under a Russian sky!” Still, his fate was an enviable one. “For the last eleven years your name has enjoyed a wide celebrity in Russia, and from the banks of the Neva to the remotest parts of Siberia you are read with avidity. Your
Dombey
continues to inspire with enthusiasm the whole of the literary Russia.” Much did we delight in the good Wredenskii; and for a long time, on anything going “contrairy” in the public or private direction with him, he would tell me he had ordered his portmanteau to be packed for the more sympathising and congenial climate of “the remotest parts of Siberia.”

The week before he left Bonchurch I again had news of the old and often recurring fancy. “The old notion of the Periodical, which has been agitating itself in my mind for so long, I really think is at last gradually growing into form.” That was on the 24th of September; and on the 7th of October, from Broadstairs, I had something of the form it had been taking. “I do great injustice to my floating ideas (pretty speedily and comfortably settling down into orderly arrangement) by saying anything about the Periodical now: but my notion is a weekly journal, price either three-halfpence or two-pence, matter in part original and in part selected, and always having, if possible, a little good poetry. . . . Upon the selected matter, I have particular notions. One is, that it should always be
a subject
. For example, a history of Piracy; in connexion with which there is a vast deal of extraordinary, romantic, and almost unknown matter. A history of Knight-errantry, and the wild old notion of the Sangreal. A history of Savages, showing the singular respects in which all savages are like each other; and those in which civilised men, under circumstances of difficulty, soonest become like savages. A history of remarkable characters, good and bad,
in
history; to assist the reader’s judgment in his observation of men, and in his estimates of the truth of many characters in fiction. All these things, and fifty others that I have already thought of, would be compilations; through the whole of which the general intellect and purpose of the paper should run, and in which there would be scarcely less interest than in the original matter. The original matter to be essays, reviews, letters, theatrical criticisms, &c., &c., as amusing as possible, but all distinctly and boldly going to what in one’s own view ought to be the spirit of the people and the time. . . . Now to bind all this together, and to get a character established as it were which any of the writers may maintain without difficulty, I want to suppose a certain Shadow, which may go into any place, by sunlight, moonlight, starlight, firelight, candlelight, and be in all homes, and all nooks and corners, and be supposed to be cognisant of everything, and go everywhere, without the least difficulty. Which may be in the Theatre, the Palace, the House of Commons, the Prisons, the Unions, the Churches, on the Railroad, on the Sea, abroad and at home: a kind of semi-omniscient, omnipresent, intangible creature. I don’t think it would do to call the paper The Shadow: but I want something tacked to that title, to express the notion of its being a cheerful, useful, and always welcome Shadow. I want to open the first number with this Shadow’s account of himself and his family. I want to have all the correspondence addressed to him. I want him to issue his warnings from time to time, that he is going to fall on such and such a subject; or to expose such and such a piece of humbug; or that he may be expected shortly in such and such a place. I want the compiled part of the paper to express the idea of this Shadow’s having been in libraries, and among the books referred to. I want him to loom as a fanciful thing all over London; and to get up a general notion of ‘What will the Shadow say about this, I wonder? What will the Shadow say about that? Is the Shadow here?’ and so forth. Do you understand? . . . I have an enormous difficulty in expressing what I mean, in this stage of the business; but I think the importance of the idea is, that once stated on paper, there is no difficulty in keeping it up. That it presents an odd, unsubstantial, whimsical, new thing: a sort of previously unthought-of Power going about. That it will concentrate into one focus all that is done in the paper. That it sets up a creature which isn’t the Spectator, and isn’t Isaac Bickerstaff, and isn’t anything of that kind: but in which people will be perfectly willing to believe, and which is just mysterious and quaint enough to have a sort of charm for their imagination, while it will represent common-sense and humanity. I want to express in the title, and in the grasp of the idea to express also, that it is the Thing at everybody’s elbow, and in everybody’s footsteps. At the window, by the fire, in the street, in the house, from infancy to old age, everyone’s inseparable companion. . . . Now do you make anything out of this? which I let off as if I were a bladder full of it, and you had punctured me. I have not breathed the idea to any one; but I have a lively hope that it
is
an idea, and that out of it the whole scheme may be hammered.”

Excellent the idea doubtless, and so described in his letter that hardly anything more characteristic survives him. But I could not make anything out of it that had a quite feasible look. The ordinary ground of miscellaneous reading, selection, and compilation out of which it was to spring, seemed to me no proper soil for the imaginative produce it was meant to bear. As his fancies grew and gathered round it, they had given it too much of the range and scope of his own exhaustless land of invention and marvel; and the very means proposed for letting in the help of others would only more heavily have weighted himself. Not to trouble the reader now with objections given him in detail, my judgment was clear against his plan; less for any doubt of the effect if its parts could be brought to combine, than for my belief that it was not in that view practicable; and though he did not immediately accept my reasons, he acquiesced in them ultimately. “I do not lay much stress on your grave doubts about Periodical, but more anon.” The more anon resolved itself into conversations out of which the shape given to the project was that which it finally took.

It was to be a weekly miscellany of general literature; and its stated objects were to be, to contribute to the entertainment and instruction of all classes of readers, and to help in the discussion of the more important social questions of the time. It was to comprise short stories by others as well as himself; matters of passing interest in the liveliest form that could be given to them; subjects suggested by books that might most be attracting attention; and poetry in every number if possible, but in any case something of romantic fancy. This was to be a cardinal point. There was to be no mere utilitarian spirit; with all familiar things, but especially those repellent on the surface, something was to be connected that should be fanciful or kindly; and the hardest workers were to be taught that their lot is not necessarily excluded from the sympathies and graces of imagination. This was all finally settled by the close of 1849, when a general announcement of the intended adventure was made. There remained only a title and an assistant editor; and I am happy now to remember that for the latter important duty Mr. Wills was chosen at my suggestion. He discharged his duties with admirable patience and ability for twenty years, and Dickens’s later life had no more intimate friend.

The title took some time and occupied many letters. One of the first thought-of has now the curious interest of having foreshadowed, by the motto proposed to accompany it, the title of the series of
All the Year Round
which he was led to substitute for the older series in 1859. “The Robin. With this motto from Goldsmith. ‘
The redbreast, celebrated for its affection to mankind, continues with us, the year round.
’“ That however was rejected. Then came: “Mankind. This I think very good.” It followed the other nevertheless. After it came: “And here a strange idea, but with decided advantages. ‘Charles Dickens. A weekly journal designed for the instruction and entertainment of all classes of readers. Conducted by Himself.’“ Still, there was something wanting in that also. Next day arrived: “I really think if there
be
anything wanting in the other name, that this is very pretty, and just supplies it. The Household Voice. I have thought of many others, as — The Household Guest. The Household Face. The Comrade. The Microscope. The Highway Of Life. The Lever. The Rolling Years. The Holly Tree (with two lines from Southey for a motto). Everything, But I rather think the Voice is it.” It was near indeed; but the following day came, “Household Words. This is a very pretty name:” and the choice was made.

The first number appeared on Saturday the 30th of March 1850, and contained among other things the beginning of a story by a very original writer, Mrs. Gaskell, for whose powers he had a high admiration, and with whom he had friendly intercourse during many years. Other opportunities will arise for mention of those with whom this new labour brought him into personal communication, but I may at once say that of all the writers, before unknown, whom his journal helped to make familiar to a wide world of readers, he had the strongest personal interest in Mr. Sala, and placed at once in the highest rank his capabilities of help in such an enterprise.
An illustrative trait of what I have named as its cardinal point to him will fitly close my account of its establishment. Its first number, still unpublished, had not seemed to him quite to fulfil his promise, “tenderly to cherish the light of fancy inherent in all breasts;” and, as soon as he received the proof of the second, I heard from him. “Looking over the suggested contents of number two at breakfast this morning” (Brighton: 14th of March 1850) “I felt an uneasy sense of there being a want of something tender, which would apply to some universal household knowledge. Coming down in the railroad the other night (always a wonderfully suggestive place to me when I am alone) I was looking at the stars, and revolving a little idea about them. Putting now these two things together, I wrote the enclosed little paper, straightway; and should like you to read it before you send it to the printers (it will not take you five minutes), and let me have a proof by return.” This was the child’s “dream of a star,” which opened his second number; and, not appearing among his reprinted pieces, may justify a word or two of description. It is of a brother and sister, constant child-companions, who used to make friends of a star, watching it together until they knew when and where it would rise, and always bidding it good-night; so that when the sister dies the lonely brother still connects her with the star, which he then sees opening as a world of light, and its rays making a shining pathway from earth to heaven; and he also sees angels waiting to receive travellers up that sparkling road, his little sister among them; and he thinks ever after that he belongs less to the earth than to the star where his sister is; and he grows up to youth and through manhood and old age, consoled still under the successive domestic bereavements that fall to his earthly lot by renewal of that vision of his childhood; until at last, lying on his own bed of death, he feels that he is moving as a child to his child-sister, and he thanks his heavenly father that the star had so often opened before to receive the dear ones who awaited him.

His sister Fanny and himself, he told me long before this paper was written, used to wander at night about a churchyard near their house, looking up at the stars; and her early death, of which I am now to speak, had vividly reawakened all the childish associations which made her memory dear to him.

CHAPTER XX.

LAST YEARS IN DEVONSHIRE TERRACE.

1848-1851.

Sentiment about Places — Personal Revelations — At his Sister’s Sick-bed — Sister’s Death — Book to be written in First Person — Visiting the Scene of a Tragedy — First sees Yarmouth — Birth of Sixth Son — Title of
Copperfield
chosen — Difficulties of Opening — Memorable Dinner — Rogers and Benedict — Wit of Fonblanque — Procter and Macready — The Sheridans — Dinner to Halévy and Scribe — Expedition with Lord Mulgrave — The Duke at Vauxhall — Carlyle and Thackeray — Marryat’s Delight with Children — Monckton Milnes and Lord Lytton — Lords Dudley, Stuart, and Nugent — Kemble, Harness, and Dyce — Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble — Mazzini and Edinburgh Friends — Artist Acquaintance — Friends from America — M. Van de Weyer — Doubtful Compliment — A Hint for London Citizens — Letter against Public Executions — An American Observer in England — Marvels of English Manners — Letter from Rockingham — Private Theatricals — A Family Scene — Death of Francis Jeffrey — Progress of
Copperfield
— A Run to Paris — Third Daughter born — At Great Malvern — Macready’s Farewell — The Home at Shepherd’s-bush — Death of John Dickens — Tribute by his Son — Theatrical-fund Dinner — Plea for Small Actors — Death of his Little Daughter — Advocating Sanitary Reform — Lord Shaftesbury — Realities of his Books to Dickens.