Brief description: Letter, from Charles Dickens to John Forster, 9 June 1847
Label: In this to his close friend John Forster, Dickens seeks to put an end to a dispute between Forster and William Makepeace Thackeray, an author who rivalled Dickens in popularity during his lifetime. Thackeray had feuds with many people in Dickens's circle over the years, including Dickens himself. Forster had called Thackeray "as false as Hell" and the comment had made its way back to Thackeray. Dickens and Thackeray's friend, Sir Gordon, met to mediate the dispute and Dickens reports the matter now hopefully put to bed.
Collection: Archives & Manuscripts
Object number: A517
Object type: letter
Production person: Dickens, Charles
Production date: 9/06/1847
Inscription content: Athenaeum. | Wednesday Night | Ninth June 1847.
My Dear Forster.
I saw Gordon just now (1/2 p 9) and in handing him your letter, said what you wished. He read it, attentively, and said he presumed there was an end of the matter. Did I think Thackeray had anything more to do? I said, No. That I had considered that an end of it, and had said so much to you. He then observed that Thackeray was coming at eleven o'clock, and he would give it to him, and so close the business.
I said that as far as Thackeray was concerned, and separ[a]ting my remark from you, or your affair, I should tell him, if he were there, that I thought these things arose in his jesting much too lightly between what was true and what was false, and what he owed to both, and not being sufficiently steady to the former. Gordon said he quite assented to this. I added that I was bound to say beyond this, that in reference to his Imitations in Punch (out of which, as I understand from you, the conversation with Mr. Taylor had arisen) I had a strong opinion of my own: and that it was, that they did no honor to literature or to literary men, and should be left to very inferior and miserable hands. Which I desired Thackeray to know. Gordon quite assented to this, also, and said that your letter did you, in his opinion, great credit--that it was full of good sense and manly dealing--and that he had read it with great satisfaction. I told him, with reference to that paragraph of retort on Thackeray, that as I had reason to know its force, better than you did even, I had not objected to it, but had felt it ought to be there. And I told him (as I never told you, though I had my reason 7 or 8 years ago) why.
Gordon said, towards the close of our interview, that he hoped this wod. have no unpleasant bearings on Mr. Taylor who, he was sure, had merely spoken in jest. I said that I understood you had been, during my absence from England, in habits of intimacy and familiarity, and that I denied a man's right to jest, after that fashion. I said, moreover, that I could not oppose your sending a copy of that letter to Mr. Taylor, if you were so inclined, though I should object to your addressing him on the subject in any other form. Gordon replied that he thought your desire would be a reasonable one, if you did desire to send him that copy.
Beyond this, I described your real conversation with Mr. Taylor, as you described it to me. And Gordon said, more than once, that he thought Thackeray altogether wrong in the sort of behaviour he had adopted towards you at Procter's, and that he had better have taken you aside, and told you his offence.
I have omitted nothing of the purport of our conversation--which I detail here, of course, only for you. Nothing could possibly be more frank, sensible, or gentlemanly in the best sense, than Gordon's behaviour through the whole affair. There did not appear to be the smallest difference of opinion between himself and me.
So Good night my dear Forster, and I am heartily glad nothing stood over until tomorrow.
Always affectionately
CD.

Letter, from Charles Dickens to John Forster, 9 June 1847