Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-02-23
THE Dickens FAMILY.
The Story OF the Separation froEa
the Wife as told BY fAe Husband.

the Wife as told BY the Husband.
The following letter, written some ten
years since, has recently been made pub
lie: @ o
LoNpoN, May 2s, 1s5s-Mg Dear Ar-
thur: Yon have not only my full per-
mission to show this, but beg you to show
it to any one who wishes to DO me right,
or to any one who msy have been misled
into doing me wrong.
Faithfully, yours, c. d.
To Arthur Smith, ESD: 41
Mrs Dickens and have lived tmhappily
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. / suppose that no
two people, not vicious in themselves, ever
were joined together who had a greater
difficulty in understanding ore another, or
who had less in commSn. An attached
woman servant, (more friend to both of
us than a servant, who lived with us six
teen years, and is now married, and who
was, and still is, in Mrs. Dickens conf
dence and mine, who had the closest fa-
miiiar 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 bear testimony to this.
Nothing has, on many occasions, stood
betgeee -ns- and separation but Mrs. Dick
ems sister, Georgine Hagarth. From The
age of fifteen she has devoted herself 10
our house and our children. She has been
her playmate, muse, instructress, friend,
protectress, adviser and companion. Iu
the manly consideration towards Mrs.
Dickens which l owe toward my wife, |
will only remark of her that the pecu-
liarity of her character has thrown all the
children on some one else. do 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 demonstrated, reasoned, suffered
and toiied, and came again to prevent q
separation between Mrs. Dickens and me.
Mrs Dickens had often expressed to her
her sense of her affectionate care and devo-
ton IN the hodse-neyer more strongly
than within the past 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 es-
arrangement made mental disorder under
which she sometimes labors more, that
she felt herself unfit for the life she had
to lead as my wife, and that she would be
better far away. | have uniformly replied
that We must bear our misfortune, and
fight the fight out to the end that the
children were the frat consideration, and
that feared they must bind us together "in
appearance"
At length, within these three weeks, il
was suggested to me by Forster, that even
for their sakes. it surely would be better to
reconstruct aud re-arrange their unhappy
home | 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 30. On Saturday last Lemon wrote
to Forster that Mrs. Dickens gratefully
and thankfully accepted the terms / pro.
posed to her" Of the pecuniary part o.
them | will only say that l believe thai
they are Sd generous as if Mrs. Dickens
we're lady of distinction and man O
fortune. The remaining parts of them art
easily described: Ny eldest boy to livG
with Mrs. Dickens, and to take care o.
her; my eldest girl to keep my house
both my girls and all my children, but tbs
eldest son, to live with me, in the continued
companionship of their Aunt Georgine
for whom they have all the tenderest afiec
tions that have ever seen among youn(
! people, and who has higher claim, as
have often declared for many years, upor
my affection, respect and gratitude thar
anybody in this world
/ hope that no one who may become &C
! quainted with what write here, can posi-
/ bly, be so cruel and unjust as to put am
miaconstruction on our separation, so far
My other children all understand it per
fectly, and ali accept it as inevitable.