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.
Page 5
Dickens, Charles - Reprinted Pieces
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
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-
Page 6
Dickens, Charles - Reprinted Pieces
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-
Page 7
Dickens, Charles - Reprinted Pieces
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
Page 8
Dickens, Charles - Reprinted Pieces
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,