The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To T. [J.] CULLIFORD,1 [24 JANUARY 1837]

MS Private. Date: endorsed 24 Jan 37.

Furnival’s Inn | Tuesday Afternoon

My Dear Uncle

I regret to say that I cannot leave home this evening. Catherine is not so well as she was;2 and we have a consultation here, at six o’clock. I was seized last night with a violent pain in my head (fortunately, just as I had concluded my month’s work) and was immediately ordered as much medicine as would confine an ordinary-sized horse to his stall for a week. Whether it arises from the “Influentials”,3 or from close application, or from worry, or from the wind cholic, to quote King Arthur,4 I know not. But this I know – that sorely against my will and much to my disappointment, here I am, in a gloomy and miserable state, and here I must remain.

Believe me | Affectionately yours,

    CHARLES DICKENS

T. C.5 Culliford Esqre

• 1. Presumably Thomas John Culliford (1781-1852), CD’s maternal uncle; son of Thomas Culliford, musical instrument maker; partner in Dewar & Culliford, insurance brokers.
• 2. Charley had been born on 6 Jan.
• 3. I.e. influenza.
• 4. In Fielding’s The Great Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, I, iii.
• 5. Thus in MS.