Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood

"Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood" is a satirical piece by Charles Dickens that showcases the author's sharp wit and keen observational skills. In this work, Dickens humorously explores the absurdities of life in Victorian England through a fictitious correspondence. The letter serves as a commentary on societal norms and the eccentricities of human behavior, particularly in the realms of creativity and the literary world. Dickens’ playful yet incisive prose highlights both the absurdity and the poignancy of the challenges faced by writers, making it a delightful read for enthusiasts of his work and fans of Victorian literature.

• Essay

								
FROM AN ANCIENT GENTLEMAN

MR. HOOD.  SIR,—The Constitution is going at last!  You needn’t laugh,
Mr. Hood.  I am aware that it has been going, two or three times before;
perhaps four times; but it is on the move now, sir, and no mistake.

I beg to say, that I use those last expressions advisedly, sir, and not
in the sense in which they are now used by Jackanapeses.  There were no
Jackanapeses when I was a boy, Mr. Hood.  England was Old England when I
was young.  I little thought it would ever come to be Young England when
I was old.  But everything is going backward.

Ah! governments were governments, and judges were judges, in my day,
Mr. Hood.  There was no nonsense then.  Any of your seditious
complainings, and we were ready with the military on the shortest notice.
We should have charged Covent Garden Theatre, sir, on a Wednesday night:
at the point of the bayonet.  Then, the judges were full of dignity and
firmness, and knew how to administer the law.  There is only one judge
who knows how to do his duty, now.  He tried that revolutionary female
the other day, who, though she was in full work (making shirts at
three-halfpence a piece), had no pride in her country, but treasonably
took it in her head, in the distraction of having been robbed of her easy
earnings, to attempt to drown herself and her young child; and the
glorious man went out of his way, sir—out of his way—to call her up for
instant sentence of Death; and to tell her she had no hope of mercy in
this world—as you may see yourself if you look in the papers of Wednesday
the 17th of April.  He won’t be supported, sir, I know he won’t; but it
is worth remembering that his words were carried into every manufacturing
town of this kingdom, and read aloud to crowds in every political
parlour, beer-shop, news-room, and secret or open place of assembly,
frequented by the discontented working-men; and that no milk-and-water
weakness on the part of the executive can ever blot them out.  Great
things like that, are caught up, and stored up, in these times, and are
not forgotten, Mr. Hood.  The public at large (especially those who wish
for peace and conciliation) are universally obliged to him.  If it is
reserved for any man to set the Thames on fire, it is reserved for him;
and indeed I am told he very nearly did it, once.

But even he won’t save the constitution, sir: it is mauled beyond the
power of preservation.  Do you know in what foul weather it will be
sacrificed and shipwrecked, Mr. Hood?  Do you know on what rock it will
strike, sir?  You don’t, I am certain; for nobody does know as yet but
myself.  I will tell you.

The constitution will go down, sir (nautically speaking), in the
degeneration of the human species in England, and its reduction into a
mingled race of savages and pigmies.

That is my proposition.  That is my prediction.  That is the event of
which I give you warning.  I am now going to prove it, sir.

You are a literary man, Mr. Hood, and have written, I am told, some
things worth reading.  I say I am told, because I never read what is
written in these days.  You’ll excuse me; but my principle is, that no
man ought to know anything about his own time, except that it is the
worst time that ever was, or is ever likely to be.  That is the only way,
sir, to be truly wise and happy.

In your station, as a literary man, Mr. Hood, you are frequently at the
Court of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen.  God bless her!  You have reason
to know that the three great keys to the royal palace (after rank and
politics) are Science, Literature, Art.  I don’t approve of this myself.
I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and quite un-English; the custom
having been a foreign one, ever since the reigns of the uncivilised
sultans in the Arabian Nights, who always called the wise men of their
time about them.  But so it is.  And when you don’t dine at the royal
table, there is always a knife and fork for you at the equerries’ table:
where, I understand, all gifted men are made particularly welcome.

But all men can’t be gifted, Mr. Hood.  Neither scientific, literary, nor
artistical powers are any more to be inherited than the property arising
from scientific, literary, or artistic productions, which the law, with a
beautiful imitation of nature, declines to protect in the second
generation.  Very good, sir.  Then, people are naturally very prone to
cast about in their minds for other means of getting at Court Favour;
and, watching the signs of the times, to hew out for themselves, or their
descendants, the likeliest roads to that distinguished goal.

Mr. Hood, it is pretty clear, from recent records in the Court Circular,
that if a father wish to train up his son in the way he should go, to go
to Court: and cannot indenture him to be a scientific man, an author, or
an artist, three courses are open to him.  He must endeavour by
artificial means to make him a dwarf, a wild man, or a Boy Jones.

Now, sir, this is the shoal and quicksand on which the constitution will
go to pieces.

I have made inquiry, Mr. Hood, and find that in my neighbourhood two
families and a fraction out of every four, in the lower and middle
classes of society, are studying and practising all conceivable arts to
keep their infant children down.  Understand me.  I do not mean down in
their numbers, or down in their precocity, but down in their growth, sir.
A destructive and subduing drink, compounded of gin and milk in equal
quantities, such as is given to puppies to retard their growth: not
something short, but something shortening: is administered to these young
creatures many times a day.  An unnatural and artificial thirst is first
awakened in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies,
sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description
of diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a
heart of stone, which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to
melting), this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs.
At such an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of
provoking thirst, then quenching it with a stunting drink, observed, that
brine pap has already superseded the use of tops-and-bottoms; and
wet-nurses, previously free from any kind of reproach, have been seen to
stagger in the streets: owing, sir, to the quantity of gin introduced
into their systems, with a view to its gradual and natural conversion
into the fluid I have already mentioned.

Upon the best calculation I can make, this is going on, as I have said,
in the proportion of about two families and a fraction in four.  In one
more family and a fraction out of the same number, efforts are being made
to reduce the children to a state of nature; and to inculcate, at a
tender age, the love of raw flesh, train oil, new rum, and the
acquisition of scalps.  Wild and outlandish dances are also in vogue (you
will have observed the prevailing rage for the Polka); and savage cries
and whoops are much indulged in (as you may discover, if you doubt it, in

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