- Brief description
- Letter, from Charles Dickens to Georgina Hogarth, 25 October 1853
- Label
- Letter from Charles Dickens to Georgina Hogarth, 25 October 1853, written from Hotel de la Villa, Milan, Italy.
On holiday in Italy, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and their friend Augustus Egg, have a moustache growing competition. Writing back to his sister-in-law Georgina, Charles updates that the moustaches ‘are more distressing, more comic, more sparse and meagre… than anything in that nature ever produced’. Charles describes shaving off his beard, leaving just a moustache shown in this photograph of him at around the same time, which ‘now looks enormous’. - Collection
- Archives & Manuscripts
- Object number
- A179
- Object type
- letter
- Production person
- Dickens, Charles
- Production date
- 25/10/1853
- Inscription content
- Inghilterra. | Miss Hogarth | Tavistock House | Tavistock Square | London.
Hotel de la Villa, Milan | Tuesday Twenty Fifth October 1853.
My Dear Georgy.
First of all, the main thing I have to tell you, is, that the word describing a sparkling wine--the word synonymous with Mousseux--which I vaguely remembered at Boulogne but could not recal, turned up at Domo D'Ossala, the very first Italian place we stayed at. As follows:
INIMITABLE (To Waiter). C'e un vino che vido scritto sulla carta, "Vino d'Asti". C'e il vecchio vino che ho spesse volte bevuto--un vino come champagne--non e vero?
WAITER (To Inimitable) Si Signore. Un vino bianco, Italiano--un vino spumante.
INIMITABLE (apart)--Ecco la parola! L'ho trovato!
The next thing you will be interested in hearing of, is the progress of the emulative moustaches of the two other members of the Triumvirate. They are more distressing, more comic, more sparse and meagre, more straggling, wandering, wiry, stubbly, formless--more given to wandering into strange places and sprouting up noses and dribbling under chins--than anything in that nature ever produced, as I believe, since the Flood. Collins has taken to wiping his (which are like the Plornishghenter's eyebrows) at dinner; and Egg's are not near his nose, but begin at the corners of his mouth, like those of the Witches in Macbeth. I have suffered so much from the contemplation of these terrific objects from grey dawn to night in little carriages, that this morning, finding myself with a good looking glass, and a good light, I seized my best razor, and, as a great example, shaved off the whole of the Newgate fringe from under my chin! The moustache remains, and now looks enormous; but the beard I have sacrificed as a dread warning to competitors--which I am bound to add does not produce the least effect; they merely observing with complacency that "it looks much better so".
I have walked to that extent in Switzerland (walked over the Simplon on Sunday, as an addition to the other feats) that one pair of the new strong shoes has gone to be mended this morning, and the other is in but a poor way; the snow having played the Mischief with them. I saw the deaf dumb and blind youth at Lausanne on the morning of my departure. Tremendous efforts were made by Hertzel, to impress him with an idea of me and the associations belonging to me. It seemed in my eyes quite a failure, and I very much doubt if he had the least perception of his old acquaintance. Meanwhile he was always (according to his old custom) muttering strange eager sounds like "Town" and "Down" and "Mown"--which Townshend, in a most ludicrous manner, wrested into an irrepressible desire on the poor fellow's part to articulate his name. As he evidently had no more idea of Townshend than of any lamp post in London it was so extraordinarily absurd that I laughed disgracefully and could not be stopped. The interview terminated by Townshend's buying every object down in that dismal little place where we used to see the boy at work--he perpetually coming back again for that purpose (when we were wild to get away, lest we should lose the boat) and saying, in the oddest french "Combien cette choselà?--Oh!--Voulez-vous donc avoir la bonté d'envoyer cet objet chez-moi?--Et cet autre objet--combien?--Oh!--Vrai-ment!--Voulez-vous donc envoyez--cet objet--aussi--chez moi--Mon loisir"--We forced him out at last, and I left ten francs to be spent in cigars for my old friend. If I had taken one with me, I think I would have established the association more successfully than his master. The similarly afflicted child, the little girl, whom we saw there, was discharged after some trial as an Idiot, and was hardly remembered when I asked after her.
On the Swiss side of the Simplon, we slept at the beastliest little town, in the wildest kind of house, where some fifty cats tumbled into the corridor outside our bedrooms all at once in the middle of the night--whether through the roof or not, I don't know; for it was dark when we got up--and made such a horrible and terrific noise that we started out of our beds in a panic. I strongly objected to opening the door lest they should get into the room and tear at us; but Edward opened his, and laid about him until he dispersed them. At Domo d'Ossola we had three immense bedrooms (Egg's bed twelve feet wide!) and a Sala of imperceptible extent in the dim light of two candles and a wood fire; but were very well and very cheaply entertained. Here, we are, as you know, housed in the greatest comfort.
We continue to get on very well indeed together, though I am rather confirmed in general suspicions I have long entertained that other men in general (and Collins in particular) spit and snort rather more than I have ever found it necessary to do--particularly in the early part of the day. We really do admirably. I lose no opportunity of inculcating the lesson that it is of no use to be out of temper in travelling, and it is very seldom wanted for any of us. Egg is an excellent fellow and full of good qualities--I am sure a generous and staunch man at heart. He is not above the average, intellectually; but I believe he is, in a good and honorable nature.
I shall send Catherine from Genoa a list of the places where letters will find me. I shall hope to hear from you too, and shall be very glad indeed to do so. No more at present. Ever most affectionately CD.
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