The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To THE REV. GEORGE ARMSTRONG,1 12 NOVEMBER 1842

MS Gavin John Adams.

Devonshire Terrace | Twelfth November 1842

My Dear Sir

I have such a nervous dread of seeming to presume on my position by obtruding myself on the public in connexion with matters with which I have no immediate concern; and I so honestly feel the presumption of trumpeting my opinion of such a man as Dr. Channing, who is immortal in the hearts of all good men, that I shrink involuntarily from the idea of having my letter to you published;2 and I [ ]3 must beg you, therefore, still to regard it in the light of a strictly private communication.

The Reverend George Armstrong.

Dear Sir | Faithfully Yours 

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. The Rev. George Armstrong (1792-1857); born in Ireland, graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and ordained in the Church of England 1815. Resigned his Orders and became a champion of Unitarianism. Settled in Bristol 1838.
• 2. Armstrong, replying to CD’s refusal to write anything about Channing (To Armstrong, 5 Nov 1842), regretfully admitted to its force, but had asked whether he might prefix to a discourse on Channing the expression of interest CD had conveyed in his letter (see Pilgrim Letters 3, p. 362, n.2).
• 3. CD here crossed out four words: they possibly read “cannot resist the impulse”.