Reprinted Pieces

by Dickens, Charles

  in attempting to ascend. They could yet discern some part of the

  ship, and in their dreary station solaced themselves with the hopes

  of its remaining entire until day-break; for, in the midst of their

  own distress, the sufferings of the females on board affected them

  with the most poignant anguish; and every sea that broke inspired

  them with terror for their safety.

  'But, alas, their apprehensions were too soon realised! Within a

  very few minutes of the time that Mr. Rogers gained the rock, an

  universal shriek, which long vibrated in their ears, in which the

  voice of female distress was lamentably distinguished, announced

  the dreadful catastrophe. In a few moments all was hushed, except

  the roaring of the winds and the dashing of the waves; the wreck

  was buried in the deep, and not an atom of it was ever afterwards

  seen.'

  The most beautiful and affecting incident I know, associated with a

  shipwreck, succeeds this dismal story for a winter night. The

  Grosvenor, East Indiaman, homeward bound, goes ashore on the coast

  of Caffraria. It is resolved that the officers, passengers, and

  crew, in number one hundred and thirty-five souls, shall endeavour

  to penetrate on foot, across trackless deserts, infested by wild

  beasts and cruel savages, to the Dutch settlements at the Cape of

  Good Hope. With this forlorn object before them, they finally

  separate into two parties - never more to meet on earth.

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  There is a solitary child among the passengers - a little boy of

  seven years old who has no relation there; and when the first party

  is moving away he cries after some member of it who has been kind

  to him. The crying of a child might be supposed to be a little

  thing to men in such great extremity; but it touches them, and he

  is immediately taken into that detachment.

  From which time forth, this child is sublimely made a sacred

  charge. He is pushed, on a little raft, across broad rivers by the

  swimming sailors; they carry him by turns through the deep sand and

  long grass (he patiently walking at all other times); they share

  with him such putrid fish as they find to eat; they lie down and

  wait for him when the rough carpenter, who becomes his especial

  friend, lags behind. Beset by lions and tigers, by savages, by

  thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of ghastly shapes, they

  never - O Father of all mankind, thy name be blessed for it! -

  forget this child. The captain stops exhausted, and his faithful

  coxswain goes back and is seen to sit down by his side, and neither

  of the two shall be any more beheld until the great last day; but,

  as the rest go on for their lives, they take the child with them.

  The carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in starvation; and

  the steward, succeeding to the command of the party, succeeds to

  the sacred guardianship of the child.

  God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully carries

  him in his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he feeds him

  when he himself is griped with want; how he folds his ragged jacket

  round him, lays his little worn face with a woman's tenderness upon

  his sunburnt breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as

  he limps along, unmindful of his own parched and bleeding feet.

  Divided for a few days from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand

  and bury their good friend the cooper - these two companions alone

  in the wilderness - and then the time comes when they both are ill,

  and beg their wretched partners in despair, reduced and few in

  number now, to wait by them one day. They wait by them one day,

  they wait by them two days. On the morning of the third, they move

  very softly about, in making their preparations for the resumption

  of their journey; for, the child is sleeping by the fire, and it is

  agreed with one consent that he shall not be disturbed until the

  last moment. The moment comes, the fire is dying - and the child

  is dead.

  His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while behind

  him. His grief is great, he staggers on for a few days, lies down

  in the desert, and dies. But he shall be re-united in his immortal

  spirit - who can doubt it! - with the child, when he and the poor

  carpenter shall be raised up with the words, 'Inasmuch as ye have

  done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.'

  As I recall the dispersal and disappearance of nearly all the

  participators in this once famous shipwreck (a mere handful being

  recovered at last), and the legends that were long afterwards

  revived from time to time among the English officers at the Cape,

  of a white woman with an infant, said to have been seen weeping

  outside a savage hut far in the interior, who was whisperingly

  associated with the remembrance of the missing ladies saved from

  the wrecked vessel, and who was often sought but never found,

  thoughts of another kind of travel came into my mind.

  Thoughts of a voyager unexpectedly summoned from home, who

  travelled a vast distance, and could never return. Thoughts of

  this unhappy wayfarer in the depths of his sorrow, in the

  bitterness of his anguish, in the helplessness of his self-

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  reproach, in the desperation of his desire to set right what he had

  left wrong, and do what he had left undone.

  For, there were many, many things he had neglected. Little matters

  while he was at home and surrounded by them, but things of mighty

  moment when he was at an immeasurable distance. There were many

  many blessings that he had inadequately felt, there were many

  trivial injuries that he had not forgiven, there was love that he

  had but poorly returned, there was friendship that he had too

  lightly prized: there were a million kind words that he might have

  spoken, a million kind looks that he might have given, uncountable

  slight easy deeds in which he might have been most truly great and

  good. O for a day (he would exclaim), for but one day to make

  amends! But the sun never shone upon that happy day, and out of

  his remote captivity he never came.

  Why does this traveller's fate obscure, on New Year's Eve, the

  other histories of travellers with which my mind was filled but

  now, and cast a solemn shadow over me! Must I one day make his

  journey? Even so. Who shall say, that I may not then be tortured

  by such late regrets: that I may not then look from my exile on my

  empty place and undone work? I stand upon a sea-shore, where the

  waves are years. They break and fall, and I may little heed them;

  but, with every wave the sea is rising, and I know that it will

  float me on this traveller's voyage at last.

  THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER

  THE amount of money he annually diverts from wholesome and useful

  purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the

  Window Tax. He is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions

  of this time. In his idleness, his mendacity, and the imm
easurable

  harm he does to the deserving, - dirtying the stream of true

  benevolence, and muddling the brains of foolish justices, with

  inability to distinguish between the base coin of distress, and the

  true currency we have always among us, - he is more worthy of

  Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the worst characters who are

  sent there. Under any rational system, he would have been sent

  there long ago.

  I, the writer of this paper, have been, for some time, a chosen

  receiver of Begging Letters. For fourteen years, my house has been

  made as regular a Receiving House for such communications as any

  one of the great branch Post-Offices is for general correspondence.

  I ought to know something of the Begging-Letter Writer. He has

  besieged my door at all hours of the day and night; he has fought

  my servant; he has lain in ambush for me, going out and coming in;

  he has followed me out of town into the country; he has appeared at

  provincial hotels, where I have been staying for only a few hours;

  he has written to me from immense distances, when I have been out

  of England. He has fallen sick; he has died and been buried; he

  has come to life again, and again departed from this transitory

  scene: he has been his own son, his own mother, his own baby, his

  idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather. He has

  wanted a greatcoat, to go to India in; a pound to set him up in

  life for ever; a pair of boots to take him to the coast of China; a

  hat to get him into a permanent situation under Government. He has

  frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of independence.

  He has had such openings at Liverpool - posts of great trust and

  confidence in merchants' houses, which nothing but seven-and-

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  sixpence was wanting to him to secure - that I wonder he is not

  Mayor of that flourishing town at the present moment.

  The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a

  most astounding nature. He has had two children who have never

  grown up; who have never had anything to cover them at night; who

  have been continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food;

  who have never come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose,

  has accounted for his fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as a

  disinfectant); who have never changed in the least degree through

  fourteen long revolving years. As to his wife, what that suffering

  woman has undergone, nobody knows. She has always been in an

  interesting situation through the same long period, and has never

  been confined yet. His devotion to her has been unceasing. He has

  never cared for himself; HE could have perished - he would rather,

  in short - but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband,

  and a father, - to write begging letters when he looked at her?

  (He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for an

  answer to this question.)

  He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes. What his

  brother has done to him would have broken anybody else's heart.

  His brother went into business with him, and ran away with the

  money; his brother got him to be security for an immense sum and

  left him to pay it; his brother would have given him employment to

  the tune of hundreds a-year, if he would have consented to write

  letters on a Sunday; his brother enunciated principles incompatible

  with his religious views, and he could not (in consequence) permit

  his brother to provide for him. His landlord has never shown a

  spark of human feeling. When he put in that execution I don't

  know, but he has never taken it out. The broker's man has grown

  grey in possession. They will have to bury him some day.

  He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit. He has been in

  the army, in the navy, in the church, in the law; connected with

  the press, the fine arts, public institutions, every description

  and grade of business. He has been brought up as a gentleman; he

  has been at every college in Oxford and Cambridge; he can quote

  Latin in his letters (but generally misspells some minor English

  word); he can tell you what Shakespeare says about begging, better

  than you know it. It is to be observed, that in the midst of his

  afflictions he always reads the newspapers; and rounds off his

  appeal with some allusion, that may be supposed to be in my way, to

  the popular subject of the hour.

  His life presents a series of inconsistencies. Sometimes he has

  never written such a letter before. He blushes with shame. That

  is the first time; that shall be the last. Don't answer it, and

  let it be understood that, then, he will kill himself quietly.

  Sometimes (and more frequently) he HAS written a few such letters.

  Then he encloses the answers, with an intimation that they are of

  inestimable value to him, and a request that they may be carefully

  returned. He is fond of enclosing something - verses, letters,

  pawnbrokers' duplicates, anything to necessitate an answer. He is

  very severe upon 'the pampered minion of fortune,' who refused him

  the half-sovereign referred to in the enclosure number two - but he

  knows me better.

  He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes in low spirits;

  sometimes quite jocosely. When he is in low spirits he writes

  down-hill and repeats words - these little indications being

  expressive of the perturbation of his mind. When he is more

  vivacious, he is frank with me; he is quite the agreeable rattle.

  I know what human nature is, - who better? Well! He had a little

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  money once, and he ran through it - as many men have done before

  him. He finds his old friends turn away from him now - many men

  have done that before him too! Shall he tell me why he writes to

  me? Because he has no kind of claim upon me. He puts it on that

  ground plainly; and begs to ask for the loan (as I know human

  nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday six weeks,

  before twelve at noon.

  Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, and that

  there is no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have got

  rid of him at last. He has enlisted into the Company's service,

  and is off directly - but he wants a cheese. He is informed by the

  serjeant that it is essential to his prospects in the regiment that

  he should take out a single Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve

  to fifteen pounds. Eight or nine shillings would buy it. He does

  not ask for money, after what has passed; but if he calls at nine,

  to-morrow morning may he hope to find a cheese? And is there

  anything he can do to show his gratitude in Bengal?

  Once he wrote me rather a special letter, proposing relief in kind.

  He had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up

  in brown paper, at people's houses, on pretence of being a Railway-

  Porter, in which character he received carriage money. This

  sportive fancy he expiated in the House of Correction. Not long />
  after his release, and on a Sunday morning, he called with a letter

  (having first dusted himself all over), in which he gave me to

  understand that, being resolved to earn an honest livelihood, he

  had been travelling about the country with a cart of crockery.

  That he had been doing pretty well until the day before, when his

  horse had dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent. That this had

  reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the shafts

  himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London - a somewhat

  exhausting pull of thirty miles. That he did not venture to ask

  again for money; but that if I would have the goodness TO LEAVE HIM

  OUT A DONKEY, he would call for the animal before breakfast!

  At another time my friend (I am describing actual experiences)

  introduced himself as a literary gentleman in the last extremity of

  distress. He had had a play accepted at a certain Theatre - which

  was really open; its representation was delayed by the

  indisposition of a leading actor - who was really ill; and he and

  his were in a state of absolute starvation. If he made his

  necessities known to the Manager of the Theatre, he put it to me to

  say what kind of treatment he might expect? Well! we got over that

  difficulty to our mutual satisfaction. A little while afterwards

  he was in some other strait. I think Mrs. Southcote, his wife, was

  in extremity - and we adjusted that point too. A little while

  afterwards he had taken a new house, and was going headlong to ruin

  for want of a water-butt. I had my misgivings about the waterbutt,

  and did not reply to that epistle. But a little while

  afterwards, I had reason to feel penitent for my neglect. He wrote

  me a few broken-hearted lines, informing me that the dear partner

  of his sorrows died in his arms last night at nine o'clock!

  I despatched a trusty messenger to comfort the bereaved mourner and

  his poor children; but the messenger went so soon, that the play

  was not ready to be played out; my friend was not at home, and his

  wife was in a most delightful state of health. He was taken up by

  the Mendicity Society (informally it afterwards appeared), and I

  presented myself at a London Police-Office with my testimony

  against him. The Magistrate was wonderfully struck by his

  educational acquirements, deeply impressed by the excellence of his

  letters, exceedingly sorry to see a man of his attainments there,