The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To RACHAEL TALFOURD,1 17 MARCH 1854

Replaces extract in Pilgrim Letters 7, p. 295.

Text from facsimile in Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles online catalogue, June 2015.

Tavistock House

Seventeenth March, 1854

Friday.

My Dear Lady Talfourd,

When I heard, on Monday afternoon of the bereavement we both in our far different places so heavily deplore,2 I went instantly to Russell Square. You were not long gone, and I left a note (such as I could write, in the first agitation of so sudden a shock) for Frank.3

Mrs. Dickens has called at your door every day since, but I have not obtruded myself upon you. For I well know (or have hoped so) that if I could be of the smallest service or comfort to you or to anybody dear to you, you would instinctively trust my love for my dear departed friend. I have written a brief remembrance of him for the Household Words of next week.4 I venture to enclose it to you.5 It consists of only a few plain words out of my heart, but they may speak to yours.

God comfort you!

Ever Faithfully Yours

CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Rachel Talfourd (1793-1875), née Rachael Towill Rutt,wife of Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854) writer, judge, politician, and very dear friend of CD.
• 2. Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), writer, judge and politician, and very dear friend to CD, died suddenly on 13 March; CD gives a full account in his letter to John Poole of 17 March; see Pilgrim Letters 7, pp. 294-5.
• 3. Talfourd’s eldest son, Francis Talfourd (1828-1862).
• 4. CD wrote, 'The chief delight of his life was to give delight to others'; see 'The Late Mr. Justice Talfourd', Household Words 9 (25 March 1854): 117-18.
• 5. Probably one of the special issues, printed for friends on a black-bordered page, of CD’s Household Words notice of Talfourd.