- 44 -
10. Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph, New York, 1952,
vol. 1, p. 443. Professor Johnson's analysis (pp. 444-46) of the
'three intertwining roots' of Dickens's hostility towards America in 1842
seems to me very just and illuminating. He distinguishes these 'roots'
as 'Dickens's own, limitations, the distortions inevitable in the only
view of America he was given, and the actual character of the nation in
the mid-nineteenth century'
11.'My sentiment is', wrote Dickens to the actor Macready on the eve of the
letter's departure for a tour in America, 'Success to the United States
as a golden campaigning ground, but blow the United States to 'tarnal
smash as an Englishman's place of residence' (Nonesuch Letters, vol. 2,
p. 117).
12. Dickens mimicks American English in this passage by his use of the verb
'to realise'. Cf. Nonesuch Letters, vol. 2, p. 218, where he writes to
Macready, 'We don't at all take to the idea of your going away, and can't,
as our American friends say, 'realise' it'.
13. Nonesuch Letters, vol. 1, p. 777. 'Parisian workpeople and smaller shop
keepers', on the other hand, he found even worse than their American
counterparts'To the American indifference and carelessness, they add
a procrastination and want of the least heed of keeping promise or being
exact, which is certainly not surpassed in Naples. They have the American
semi-sentimental independence too, and none of the American vigour or
purpose' (Nonesuch Letters, vol. 1, p. 812).
14. Dickens had happily joined in his countrymen's derision of poor Mr. Bloomer
and her campaign to reform women's clothing along more practical and
emancipated lines: see his article, 'Sucking Pigs', published in Household
Words, 8 November 1851, and reprinted in Miscellaneous Papers, ed.
B.W.Matz.
15. Letter quoted by James D. Rust in his note, 'Dickens and the Aimertcens',
Nineteenth Century Fiction, vol. 11 (1956/57), pp. 70-72. One can only
imagine what Dickens's feelings would haye been had he seen his letter
pointed in the Memphis Morning Bulletin with the following prefatory
remarks (also quoted by Rust)'we cannot but say that we 1 ike his candor and
truthfulness. During his visit to this country, Dickens had but little
opportunity of seeing the real 'people', through the crevices in the crowd
of toadies and flunkies who flocked around the celebrity If he will
come out here to Memphis, incogand spend a few months with us in the
vigorous' atmosphere of the Empire of the Mississippi - shoot and fish with
us in the wilds of Arkansas, and catch the spirit of those ministers of
'King Cotton' who hare do congregate - renew his youth at one of our
Memphis Press Dinners, and so get to know our 'folks' that the children
will long to go rollicking with him in Court Square - we guarantee
(sic) to send hi home again with impressions, the free expression of which
wi11 flatter quite as much as anything he has ever written heretofore
displeased'
16. This treaty, signed in August 1842, settled the north-east boundary dispute
between Canada and America. Lord Ashburton was the British signatory.
