Charles DICKENS – Lettre autographe signée – Household Words & Canal Suez - 1865

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Charles DICKENS – Lettre autographe signée – Household Words & Canal Suez - 1865

Lettre autographe signée de Charles DICKENS (1812-1870), Gads Hill Place, Higham (Kent), 12 décembre 1865, 2 pages in-8, à son adresse, en anglais.

Profitant d’une demande de soutien à la pension pour Miss Waghorn, Dickens témoigne de son admiration pour le lieutenant Thomas Waghorn*, officier de marine anglais, fondateur de la route terrestre vers l'Inde et projecteur du canal de Suez, dont les services « are upon record in Public Offices ». Dickens rappelle qu’il a signé cette année deux ou trois « memorials » pour des pensions qui sont toujours en attente. Il rappelle également que lorsqu’il était directeur de la revue Household Words**, il a publié des articles sur les services du lieutenant Waghorn.

« I have been absent for a day ; otherwise I would have answered your letter immediately.

I regret that I cannot enter into the merits of miss Waghorns’ case, or urge upon any member of the government her appeal for a pension. Apart from the fact that the services of her late brother [Lieutenant Thomas Waghorn] are upon record in public offices, and that I can add nothing to the general knowledge of them. […]

I have within this year signed two or three memorials for pensions in consideration of claims with which I am personnally or professionnaly acquainted. Those cases are still pending, and while they remain so, I should not consider it reasonnable to urge others […].

Some years ago, as conductor of Household Words I urged the services and claims attaching to Lieutenant Waghorn, as you remember ».

* Thomas Fletcher Waghorn (1800–1850) was an English sailor, navy officer, and postal pioneer who promoted and claimed the idea of a new route from Great Britain to India overland through Egypt prior to the development of the Suez Canal.

** Household Words était un magazine hebdomadaire anglais publié par Charles Dickens dans les années 1850. Dickens a notamment publié "The Life and Labours of Lieutenant Waghorn." Household Words, vol 1, march 30 to sept. 21, 1850.