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１　Charles Dickens felt himself guilty　
２　My Reading of The Mystery　of Edwin Drood

1 　Charles Dickens felt himself guilty. 　　

The following statement has been featured at the Dickens Forum, moderated by Dickens Project faculty member Professor Patrick McCarthy from the University of California, Santa Barbara <DICKNS-L@LISTERV.UCSB.EDU>.

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick McCarthy
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 3:09 AM
To: DICKNS-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Response: Post on Dickens, Moral Guilt, and Ellen Ternan


 Friends of the Dickens Forum,

Without comment, we pass on a post from Terauchi Takasi　<ttakasi@gold.ocn.ne.jp> who responds　to the question of whether Dickens felt moral guilt about his relationship with Ellen Ternan:                                                    　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 (pjm)

Dear All,

If Dickens had thought that ‘moral guilt was out of question’ in his relationship with Ellen Ternan, he would not have kept that relationship from the general public, and sobbed ‘with his head buried in Katie’s wedding-gown’, saying, ‘But for me, Katie would not have left home’ after Katie’s departing from her ‘unhappy house’ for her honeymoon (Storey 105).  I think that he felt himself guilty because he broke his family by loving Ellen Ternan, kept concealing her from the world, and was so earnest a Christian as to give prayer to God every morning and evening, such as ‘I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. [...]  And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us.’

If you want to read my papers entitled ‘Dickens and Gad’s Hill Place’ and ‘Reading Dickens’s three novels: DC, ATC and GE’, please contact me.  I will send them to you through email. 

Best

Takashi TERAUCHI (Mr.)

******************

The following was written in order to reinforce the statement of the above.


1　 If Victorian Anglicans had known CD’s dishonesty toward the general public in the year 1857 and after, most of them would have regarded it as culpable.

2 　Since CD created many wicked, hypocritical, and greedy characters as well as many good, honest, immaculate ones, it could not be accepted that he was so arrogant and insensitive a Christian that he, who was very sensitive to the reaction of his readers, did not recognize nor acknowledge his own dishonesty when criticized by others.

3　 A Victorian Christian, who told a large lie to the public, could not have recommended that his children offer prayer to God every morning and evening and read the New Testament (CD did so to all his five children after his sin) without conversion or repentance.

I am convinced that CD did feel himself guilty.


Best.


Takashi TERAUCHI (Mr.)
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Written on 2 November 2014

***************

(The following message was posted to a Forum on Thursday, October 2, 2014, but with no adoption. What do you think of my reading?)

Uploaded on June 11, 2015.

　 What do you think of my idea that Charles Dickens, who died saying, 'Yes, on the ground', took not life but death?


　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　２　My reading of *The Mystery of Edwin Drood*


Dear all,


A perusal of *The Mystery of Edwin Drood* has brought me the following reading. 　
　　　There is a man by the name of John Jasper (Charles Dickens) who, though respected, is ambitious and hypocritical (as everyone is); he has a nephew (his wife, Catherine) whom he loves, but he kills him (he separated from her) because he adores his young lover (Ellen Ternan). 　He thinks he can perform his guilty action without being noticed by anybody, but it is uncovered by a woman (the existence of Ellen Ternan was known to not a few people). I think that Dickens meant that Edwin Drood was guilty and so had to be punished.


John Forster wrote,

“The last page of Edwin Drood was written in the Chalet in the afternoon of his last day of consciousness; and I have thought there might be some interest in a facsimile of the greater part of this final page of manuscript that ever came from his hand, at which he had worked unusually late in order to finish the chapter. It has very much the character, in its excessive care of correction and interlineation, of all his later manuscripts [...].”


Dickens collapsed at the dinner table, saying ‘On the ground’ as if it were a scheduled death. 　He chose death not life; he, a penitent Christian, died punishing himself.




With best wishes,
Takashi Terauchi (Mr.)
Please contact with me through email: here




Thanks are due to my English teacher, Laura Thompson, now a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee, for improving my style.