Autograph Letter Initialed (“CD”), 2 pp, 8vo (conjoining leaves), Devonshire Terrace, January 19 [but 18], 1844, to T.J. Serle, mounting remnants at hinge, else fine. Dickens writes as an administrator of the Elton Fund, the provision made for the seven orphaned children of actor Edward Elton. A Scottish actress has made a claim against the Fund, saying that Elton had borrowed money from her. Dickens takes a firm line against honoring the debt. In full: “My individual opinion is distinctly opposed to the settlement of Miss Angell’s claim. No such thing was contemplated by the donors of the Money. And if we run a risk in respect of Fifty Pounds, that is no reason, to me, for making it Seventy. The family seems to be of an odd kind and especially liable to odd influences. I shall take the opinion about the possibility of any one among them who may have less of the Fund than another, putting me with chancery one of these fine days, before I formally accept my Trusteeship. / I don’t value McIan’s idea that nobody else else would come forward if we paid Miss Angell—one peppercorn. He is a very good fellow, and I like him much. But if there be two commodities with which he is especially unfurnished, I should say they were judgment and discretion. We must formally debate Miss A, and vote pro and con, when we meet. At Forsters let it be. Yours up to his eyes in work.” Actor Robert McIan was Secretary of the Elton Fund. John Forster was Dickens’s close friend and literary advisor. Wonderful letter, reminiscent of several of Dickens’s works. He is ”up to his eyes in work” perhaps because 10 days earlier he had begun legal action against publication of a piracy of A Christmas Carol. His care for a family of orphans reminds one of Oliver Twist and his fear of being caught up in chancery by a bickering family evokes the plot of Bleak House. Published in Dickens’ Letters, Pilgrim Edition, 1978.
Autograph Letter Initialed (“CD”), 2 pp, 8vo (conjoining leaves), Devonshire Terrace, January 19 [but 18], 1844, to T.J. Serle, mounting remnants at hinge, else fine. Dickens writes as an administrator of the Elton Fund, the provision made for the seven orphaned children of actor Edward Elton. A Scottish actress has made a claim against the Fund, saying that Elton had borrowed money from her. Dickens takes a firm line against honoring the debt. In full: “My individual opinion is distinctly opposed to the settlement of Miss Angell’s claim. No such thing was contemplated by the donors of the Money. And if we run a risk in respect of Fifty Pounds, that is no reason, to me, for making it Seventy. The family seems to be of an odd kind and especially liable to odd influences. I shall take the opinion about the possibility of any one among them who may have less of the Fund than another, putting me with chancery one of these fine days, before I formally accept my Trusteeship. / I don’t value McIan’s idea that nobody else else would come forward if we paid Miss Angell—one peppercorn. He is a very good fellow, and I like him much. But if there be two commodities with which he is especially unfurnished, I should say they were judgment and discretion. We must formally debate Miss A, and vote pro and con, when we meet. At Forsters let it be. Yours up to his eyes in work.” Actor Robert McIan was Secretary of the Elton Fund. John Forster was Dickens’s close friend and literary advisor. Wonderful letter, reminiscent of several of Dickens’s works. He is ”up to his eyes in work” perhaps because 10 days earlier he had begun legal action against publication of a piracy of A Christmas Carol. His care for a family of orphans reminds one of Oliver Twist and his fear of being caught up in chancery by a bickering family evokes the plot of Bleak House. Published in Dickens’ Letters, Pilgrim Edition, 1978.
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