Item Info

Accession Number: 86-2814
Physical Description: [2] pages
Material: paper
Transcription:

  Gad’s Hill Place,
  Higham by Rochester, Kent.
  Tuesday Twenty Sixth December, 1865
My Dear Kolle.
  I have not marked the accompanying copy of your daughter’s verses, because the little that I have to say about them may be best said generally.
  They are very musical, very creditable, very good. As editor of a periodical, I read many much worse, and many much better. As the composition of a young lady in private life, they are interesting and meritorious; but I cannot do such violence to what I believe to be the truth, as to encourage a sensitive young creature to enter the public lists so armed. Great disappointment and (consequently) great unhappiness would result from so rash a venture. There may be promise in your daughter not expressed in these verses. Judging her solely by their internal evidence, I find her on a level with hundreds – thousands – of unheard of amateurs. There is a curious expression of conscious weakness in every page but one. The purpose that cannot express itself in words, without italicizing them, is waited on by a misgiving that it wants force and struggles for expression in vain.
  If the lines were by my own daughter, I should tell her exactly what I tell you.
  When I got to Paris on that occasion to which you refer, I carried out my part of our compact as heartily as I now send all good Christmas wishes to you and yours.
  My Dear Kolle
  Faithfully Yours always
  Charles Dickens
Henry Kolle Esquire

MssDate: Tuesday Twenty Sixth December, 1865
Media Type: Letters
Source: Rare Book Department
Notes:

Three ALs from Ann Kolle : to C. Fendelow [?] February 17, 1890; to C.E. Shepheard, June 26, 1890; and to C.E. Shepheard, July 12, 1890, all concerning Dickens's letters to her father, laid in (cdc420001-cdc420003; cdc420101; cdc419901-cdc419902).

Recipient: Kolle, Henry William, 1808?-1881
Provenance: Sotheby 23/24 June 1975, lot 307, thru Maggs, Gratz Fund.

Bibliography:

Volume 1, p. 5, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey ; associate editors, W.J. Carlton … [et al.].

Volume 11, p. 126, The Letters of Charles Dickens, edited by Madeline House & Graham Storey ; associate editors, W.J. Carlton … [et al.].

Country: Creation Place Note:Gad's Hill Place
Country:England
City/Town/Township:Higham by Rochester, Kent

Call Number: DL K833 1865-12-26
Creator Name: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 - Author