St. Mary's beacon., 1858-06-24
From Household Words, June Q.
A Card from Mr. Charles Dickens.

Three and twenty years have passed since |
entered upon my present relations with the
public. They began when was SO young that
| find them to have existed for nearly a quar-
ter of a century.
Through all that time have tried to be a.
faithful to the public as they have been TO me.
1t was my duty never to triAe with them Or to
deceive them, or to presume upon their favor.
or do any thing with it but work hard and JUS
tify it. l have always endcavored to discharge
that duty.
My conspicuous position has often made me
the subject Of fabulous stories and unaccounta-
BILE statements. Occasionally such things have
chated me, or even wounded me, but have
always accepted them as the shadows iusepara-
BILE from the light Of my notoriety and success.
/ have never obtruded any such personal un-
easlness OF mine upon the generous aggregate
of my audience.
For the first time in my life, and believe
for the last, now Geviate from the principle,
| have so long observed, by presenting myself
in my own journal, in my own private charac-
ter, and cntreating all my brethren las thew
deem that they have reason to think well OF
me, and to know that / am man who has
ever been unaffectedly true to our common CALI
ingl 70 lend their aid to the dissemination of
my present words.
Some domestic trouble Of mine of long stand.
ing, on which will make 70 further remark
than that it claims TO be respected as being OF
asacredly private nature, has lately been brought
to an arrangement which involves no anger or
ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, pro-
gress and surrounding circumstances Of which
have been throughout within the knowledge Of
my children. Ii is amicably composed and is
details have but now TO be forgotten by those
concerned in it.
BY some means arising out Of wickedness, or
out Ut folly, or out of inconceivable wild chance,
or out Of all three. this trouble has been The
occasion of Misrepresentation most grossly
false, most monstrous and most cruel--inv oly-
ing not only me, but innocent persons dear to
my heart, and innocent persons of whom have
no knowledge, if, indeed, they have any exis-
tence-and 50 widely spread that doubt If one
reader in thousand will peruse these lines by
whom some touch Of the breath Of these SIAN
deEs will not have passed like an unwholsome
air.
Those who know rne and my nature need No
assurance under my hand that such calumnies
are IS irreconcilable with me as they are. in
this frantic incoherence. with one another. Bu,
there's q great multitude who know me through
| my writings, and who do not know me other
wise and cannot bear that one of then,
should he left in doubt, or hazard of doubs
through my poorly shrinking from taking the
unusual means TO which now resort of circu-
lating the truth. -
most solemnly declare. then-and this d.
both in my own name and my wife's--that nj
the lately whispered runners touching the tros.
bic ut which haze glanced, are abominably
false, and that whoever repeats one Of them
after this denial will lie rs wilfuIy and as FOUL,
as it Is possible for any false-witness 10 lie Be-
fore Heaven and earth. t
4 H- CHARLEs DEcxKss.
MoSEY FOE PosrAGE.-EveYy Unitex
States officer is obliged to takecents for amount