The Indianapolis times., 1934-05-14
Roman an Beautiful
LOVE. LETTERS. OF DICKENS
Too An1aSi,lg InterIudeS in a Great Artist Life
WHAT Has GONE BEFORE

orous courtship than that of Charles
Dickens, brilliant. but poyerty-stricken
London youth, and the beautiful Maria
Beadnell. daughter of a banker. After
three glowing years. Maria discards
Dickens. ImpuIsiveIy he marries Cath
crime Hogarth. booming himself to many
years Of unha ppiness. Twenty years after
Maria again enters his life and so be-
gins the astounding "Second Interlude"
in the dramatic life of Charles Dickens.
Receiving Maria's letter. Dickens re-
sponded ardently and made a point of
providing Maria with reason to write
again. She did. At this time Dickens was
forty-four and the father of nine chill
dren. Maria had carried a staid. COM
monplace man named Winters and was
the mother of two children. Now comes
the greatest love letter ever written.
CAN any one doubt that the
~ following is one of the great
est love letters of all time! It was
sent to some secret address she
had given him, where he could
write freely, for it will be noticed,
that he says, I'm the course OF
Saturday l will write to you at
Artillery place. sending the little
brooches" commission she
had given him to execute in Paris.
Two days later he did write to her
at her home, Artillery place, but
this letter did not go there.
The greatest love letter ever
xIyYittoT1
Tavistock House,
Thursday, Twenty-second
February, 1855.
NY dear Maria: The old writing
is so plain to me, that have read
your letter with great ease
Though it is just a little crossed,
and have not lost a word of it.
I was obliged to leave Paris on
Tuesday morning before the Post
came in; but l took such pre-
cautions to prevent the possibility
of any mischance, that the letter
came close behind me. 1 arrived
at home last night and it followed
me this morning. No one but
myself has the slightest knowledge
of my correspondence. 1 may add,
in this place. 1 could be nowhere
addressed with stricter privacy or
in more absolute confidence than
at my own house.
Ali Though it is so late to read
in the old hand what 1 never read
before, 1 have read it with great
emotion, and with the old tender
ness Softened to a more Sorrowful
remembrance than I could easily
tell you. How it all happened as
it did, we shall never know on this
side of Time; but if you had ever
told me then what you tell me
now, I know myself we'll enough
to be thoroughly assured that the
simple truth and energy which
were in my love would have over
come everything. I remember well
that long after 1 came of age-I
say long: Well-it seemed long
then-I wrote to you for the last
time of all, with dawn upon me
of some sensible idea that we
were changing into man and
woman, saying would you forget
our little differences and separa-
tions and let us begin again?
You answered me very coldly and
reproachfully and so 1 went my
way.
But nobody can ever know with
what a sad heart I resigned you,
or after what struggles and what
IA conflict. My entire devotion to
you, and the wasted tenderness of
those hard years which l. have
ever since half loved, half dreaded
to recall, made so deep an impress
sion on me that 1 refer to it a
habit of suppression which now
belongs to me, which l know is
no part of my original nature,
but which makes me chary OF
showing my affections, even to
my children, except when they are
very young. A few years ago
Gust before CopperfielO I be-
gan to write my life, intending
the manuscript to be found among
my papers when its subject should
be concluded. But as I began to
approach within sight of that part
of it, I lost courage and burned
the rest. 1 have never blamed you
at all, but 1 have believed until
now that you never had the
stake in that serious game which
I had.
All this mist passes away upon
your earnest words; and when l
find myself to have been in your
mind at that thoughtful crisis in
your life which you so unaffected
" and feelingly describe, I am
quite subdued and strangely en-
lightened. When poor Fanny died
Il think she always knew that 1
could never bear to hear of you
as of any common person. we
were out of town, and I never
heard of your having been in
Devonshire Terrace-leaSt of all
in my room! I never heard OF
you in association with that time
until 1 read your letter today. I
could not, however, really could
not at any time within these nine
teen years, have been so unmind-
full of my old truth, and have so
set my old passion aside, as to
talk to you like a person in any
ordinary relation toward me. And
this I think is the main reason
on my side why the few oppor-
tunities that there have been of
our seeing one another again have
died out.
A LII this again you have
L N changed and set right-at
once so courageously, so delicately
and gently. that you open the way
to a confidence between us which
still once more, in perfect in
nocence. and good faith, may be
between ourselves alone. All that
you propose. accept with my
whole heart. Whom can You ever
trust if it be not yo''r old lover!
Tn-~ L.