BIB_ID
420853
Accession number
MA 1352.155
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.
Display Date
London, England, 1849 April 11.
Credit line
Purchased with the assistance of the Fellows, 1951.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.8 x 11.1 cm
Notes
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Written from "Devonshire Terrace / Wednesday Eleventh April / 1849."
Written from "Devonshire Terrace / Wednesday Eleventh April / 1849."
Provenance
The letters formed part of the Burdett-Coutts sale (Sotheby, 17 May 1922); they were purchased for Oliver W. Barrett in whose collection they remained until it was sold by his son (Parke-Bernet, 31 October 1951).
Summary
Expressing his pleasure "...with the letter from the first party of girls. It is very encouraging and hopeful indeed, I think. I have observed your instructions in reference to it;" referencing the trial of someone who appears to be a potential candidate for the Home; adding "Mrs. Morson certainly begins well, and I hope will prove to be the person we want;" commenting on Mrs. Brown's "unheard-of-cold. While one is about it, to beat all competitors and predecessors is a triumph. Vanity apart, I thought I had made an approach to perfection in this way, myself, three or four months ago; but I am now content to hide my diminished head, and the diminished cold in it. I scarcely feel it right to suggest a hope that she is better, and that she has come down from that height of pre-eminence - but if I may, modestly do so, I will;" adding, in a postscript, that he has done what she authorized him to do with respect to Mrs. Goldsmith.
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