- Brief description
- Letter, from Charles Dickens to Thomas Beard, 18 December 1842
- Label
- Dickens here asks Thomas Beard, one of his oldest friends, to organise the purchase of A Girl at a Waterfall, a painting by Dickens's friend Daniel Maclise, because the titular 'girl' was Dickens's sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth. Dickens does not want Maclise to know Dickens is the buyer, as he believes Maclise would lower the price out of friendship. Dickens asks Beard to write on behalf of "Mr so-and-so of such-and-such place".
- Collection
- Archives & Manuscripts
- Object number
- A40
- Object type
- letter
envelope - Production person
- Dickens, Charles
- Production date
- 18/12/1842
- Inscription content
- Wait | Thomas Beard Esquire | 42 Portman Place | Edgeware Road.
Eighteenth December | Sunday
My Dear Beard
I want your help in a pious fraud--such a pious one, that I have no doubt you will give it me.
I am very anxious for many reasons, to possess a little picture which Maclise is at this minute painting; and I know very well, that if I were to say so, he would either insist upon giving it to me, or would set some preposterous price upon it, which he can by no means afford to take. Now, I think I may purchase it without his knowing I am the purchaser; and if I can, he is a cleverer fellow than I take him to be (highly as I estimate his abilities), if he can ever return the money to me afterwards.
Behold my project.
I want you to write him a note, and say that Mr. So and So of such and such a place in Sussex--one of your country friends--is enthusiastic in his admiration of him, and is very anxious to possess a small picture (he can't afford a large one) of his painting. That he has commissioned you to ask him what he has now by him, and has empowered you to purchase any subject, with one figure in it. That you have spoken to me on the subject, and I have mentioned privately to you, his having a most charming picture of a girl at a Waterfall. That you wish to buy the girl at the Waterfall, forthwith. That you will take it as a personal favor, if he will sell you the girl at the Waterfall. And that you are prepared to give him the money down, for the girl at the Waterfall, if he will let you know what sum you shall forward to him as her ransom from his damned uncomfortable studio.
A hundred, or a hundred and fifty Guineas, will most likely be the mark. If you can only buy it, I will give you the needful instantly wherewith to close the bargain; and a hundred and fifty thousand thanks, in.
All minor points I leave to your discretion.--I suppose you an't at home, and couldn't dine here today at half past five--could you?
Always Faithfully
CD.
Thomas Beard Esquire
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