The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To THE HON. ROBERT LYTTON,1 18 FEBRUARY 1855
MS Huntington Library.
Hotel Meurice2 | Sunday Eighteenth February 1855
My Dear Mr. Lytton
I owe you many thanks for your kind remembrance. We were dining with one of the Français people3 yesterday, and could not use the tickets—only finding them when we returned home at midnight—but are not the less obliged to you. Mr. Wilkie Collins4 begs me to express his acknowledgements. I hope you will go and see Frederick Lemaitre5 in the Trente Ans.6 It is something to be attentively observed throughout, because the fineness of the latter part cannot be quite appreciated without a knowledge of the design from its beginning. So far as I know, it is the height of that art.
Robert Lytton Esquire
Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
- 1. Edward Robert Lytton (1831-91; Dictionary of National Biography), diplomat, novelist and poet (as “Owen Meredith”). The only son and second child of Edward Bulwer Lytton. His diplomatic career began 1850, in Washington; he subsequently held various posts, including in Paris 1854-6. Accepted Disraeli’s invitation to be Viceroy of India 1876-80. See further Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 694, n. 2.
- 2. CD and Wilkie Collins were in Paris, 12-20 Feb.
- 3. I.e. a member of the Théatre Français Company; François Joseph Philoclès Régnier (1807-85), French actor: see Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 8n.
- 4. Collins was not well: CD asked Sir Joseph Olliffe, the physician, for advice and Collins was subjected to “stoppage of his wine and other afflictions” (Pilgrim Letters 8, pp. 535, 540).
- 5. Antoine Louis Prosper Lemaître, known as Frédérick (1800-76), French actor.
- 6. V. Ducange, Trente ans; ou, la vie d’un joueur, Paris, 1827; CD described Lemaître’s performance and its effect to Forster (Pilgrim Letters 7, pp. 536-7).