The Jasper Weekly Courier

"Unsulted to Each Other"

That Was Dickens' Confidence to a Friend Concerning His Separation From His Wife.

Dickens and his wife (Catherine Hogarth) separated by mutual agreement in 1858, the eldest son going with his mother and the other children with their father. The event called forth a good deal of ill-natured comment at the time, with many stories that could be called scandal, but it is perhaps sufficient refutation of them that his children always had the greatest affection for their father.

Dickens wrote to one of his friends that he and Mrs. Dickens had lived together unhappily for many years as "we are in all respects of character and temperament wonderfully unsuited to each other." He also wrote: "Nothing has, on many occasions, stood between us and a separation but Mrs. Dickens' sister, Georgina Hogarth." He said "the peculiarity of her character has thrown all the care of the children on someone else."

The "peculiarity" referred to seems to have been nothing more than laziness and disinclination to care for the house and children, which was provoking to her husband. But, on the other hand, Dickens had the faults of the literary temperament—irritability, sensitiveness and intolerance of dullness. He died June 9, 1870; he was not reconciled to his wife.